Redoubtable women

We didn’t sleep all that well although we had the Traquair field car park to ourselves. Jenny came down from Fife on my recommendation and she enjoyed it but it’s a shame she didn’t choose yesterday as the discussions were better I think.

It was another busy and stimulating day, starting with historian and podcaster William Dalrymple interviewing his son Sam about his book “Shattered Lands” about five partitions of India. They certainly are very well informed.

This was followed by Sigrid Van Aken, CEO of the postcode lottery and Christopher Lockyear of Medicines Sans Frontieres. They were ably interviewed by Nicola Sturgeon about, among other things, how they deal with the aid cuts.

After lunch we went back to hear Nicola interviewed by Alan Little about her autobiography charting her rise in politics, and how she dealt with difficult decisions she had to make. She was honest and admitted that though she did her best, she can see with hindsight that some would be critical of what she did as she herself was. There was a huge queue to buy her book.

I felt like getting out for a bit of fresh air but both Jenny and Mr C wanted to listen to Field Marshal Lord Richards there to talk about his military career and sell his book. He was very critical of the present government but thought Cameron had listened to his advice. (Though he did not take it, deciding to have a useless aircraft carrier built “to save Scottish jobs”. Aye right. His motto was don’t enter a war you can’t win. And we have no resources. He also says Ukraine can’t win so it must give in to Putin’s demands.

Jenny and I went to the walled garden to listen to William Dalrymple interview Moir Mir about his book “Travels with Plontinus”.

Back to the main tent for Allan Little interviewing 4 amazing women from India and Pakistan, an ambassador from each country and 2 journalists, about relations between the counties since the recent escalation and the role of women in the peace process.

We should really have gone then but stayed to for the last discussion about the state of the world under Trump. Jim Naughtie questioned.

We are on our way home and will be having a rest tomorrow. I love this festival but because it is small and compact it’s too tempting to fill in every minute which is tiring.