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Issue No. 10, Autumn 1998 FREE
What a difference! Five years on, Bredevoort
celebrates its reformation as a book town by
hosting the first European Book Towns Festival A
Hay-on-Wye bookseller reports on his recent trip
to the Dutch book town from 22nd to 26th
August, 1998
- Chris Arden Proprietor, C. Arden
(Natural History Bookshop) Hay-on-Wye
The big event on the Book Town Calender
for August was the first 'European Book
Towns Festival' held in Bredevoort,
Netherlands, during the latter part of this
busy summer month. The festivities
were combined with Fifth Anniversay celebrations
for the formation of Bredevoort as a Book Town.
Representatives of ten Book Towns from across
Europe and the U.K. attended, with Hay-on-Wye
being represented by Richard and Hope Booth, my
wife Catherine, and myself. With the mighty boom
of a canon the Festival was officially opened on
Saturday 22nd August by Richard Booth of Hay-
on-Wye, (the first Book Town) and Noel Anselot
of Redu in Belgium, (the second Book Town).
As the first Festival of its kind, it is quite clear that
the EEC now recognises the importance of the
Book Towns movement in Rural Regeneration
[see Page 6], During the opening ceremony, Henk
Ruessink was honoured by the Queen of the
Netherlands with the highest decoration of the
country, making him a 'Knight of the Order of the
Dutch Lion'. On a previous occasion in Belgium,
Noel Anselot was awarded 'The Legion of Honour'
for his years of dedication in founding and
promoting Redu as a book town. It is perhaps
The Festival opens with a deafening cannon shot.
L-R: Noel Anselot, Richard Booth and Henk Ruessink.
remarkable that the originator of Book Towns, Richard
Booth, has to-date received no official national recognition
for his inspiration and the work he has done for the town of
Hay-on-Wye. which has now been copied with so much
success world-wide, with nineteen towns now officially part
of the book town movement.
Each of the Book Towns taking part in the Festival was
high-lighted with a day designated as their national cultural
day. On Sunday 23rd, Hay-on-Wye on the Welsh/English
border and Wigtown in Scotland had their cultural day with
music and dancing by Welsh and Scots resident in the
Netherlands. Rachael Ann Morgan O.B.E., a mezzo-soprano
soloist, sang Welsh and Scottish songs accompanying
herself on the Welsh Harp. Welsh cuisine was also provided
as a tasty treat! Similar cultural theme days were held for
the French, Swiss, Belgian, Scandinavian, Dutch and
German nations.
In 1991 the town of Bredevoort, situated near the German
border, was designated a 'Protected Townscape' by the
Dutch Government and as such attracted some
