Diaries at the Library

I went down to the Library yesterday afternoon, as Huw Parsons was giving a talk about his diary of life in Clyro, and other local diarists.
There were nine of us in the end, including a local Kilvert enthusiast, a couple who moved to Hay from Liverpool a month ago, and two ladies in wheelchairs from "the care home" (I'm assuming they meant Cartref).
Huw started off with a poem he wrote about Bob Dylan, who was one of the last people to use the Severn Ferry just before the Severn Bridge opened - there's a photo of him standing on the quayside. Huw has made a podcast of it, at https://huwspodcast.wordpress.com
Then he talked about this area's most famous diarist, Francis Kilvert, who was curate in Clyro in the 1860s. John the Kilvert enthusiast has just had an article published in the Kilvert Society magazine, suggesting that local vicar and member of the Woolhope Club, Rev. W.E.T. Morgan, may have been the best man at Kilvert's wedding - though of course, he can't ask him about it now!
The other local diarist was Anne Hughes, who wrote her Boke in 1796 - 97. The book was found at the beginning of the 20th century by Jeanne Preston, who extensively rewrote the original - her version was serialised in the Farmers' Weekly in 1937 and, sadly, the original book disappeared some time during the Second World War, so there is no way of comparing the two.
People have been looking for the village that Anne wrote about for years, because many details in the book have been changed, but Huw's theory is that it describes Much Marcle in Herefordshire. The book is called The Diary of a Farmer's Wife, and it's very entertaining.
Then he read extracts from his own diary. With the help of YouTube videos, he has bound the books himself, and copies are now available in the library.
It was an entertaining talk, and afterwards I walked up the hill with a friend who was also in the audience and a mutual friend of Huw's (she remembers him taking her small children for a ride on his motorbike - off road!).
Although we had been given a cup of tea by the librarian, which was very nice - we weren't expecting refreshments - we decided to carry on chatting at Café Hay in the Craft Centre. Although it's been there for years, I don't think I've ever been inside before. So we enjoyed coffee and cake and a window seat until her parking ticket ran out.