What a weekend!

Time goes by in a flash when you're having fun! What a weekend it was. John Byrne's opening night play about the great Ayrshire artists Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde was risque, ebullient and moving - it set the bar high and each talk added to the sense that at this our third Festival, we were overflowing with an abundance of talented performers and speakers. This was reflected in our audience - old friends and many new comers, who not only appeared to be enjoying themselves but even reported that they were!

The Festival weekend rounded up an exceptional week of activities for the Boswell team kicking off with Bozzy's Book Buzz the week before when leading children's writers spoke to 900 primary school children in the Auchinleck Community of Schools and 9 year old Ross Hunter from Mauchline Primary won our first Bozzy Book Buzz Prize for his writing on 'My Hero.'

In London a celebratory breakfast marked the 250th anniversary of the meeting of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson with fresh bakery made that morning at the new Balthazar bakery on the site in Covent Garden where the original meeting took place and in Auchinleck Churchyard on the Sunday of the Festival, a moving wreath laying ceremony saluted James Boswell on his death day.

'Mud Glorious Mud' was the song which ended John Sessions' wonderfully entertaining 'Desert Island Discs with a twist' which he wrote and starred in and nothing could be truer of our valliant campers who despite Saturday's downpour stayed the course, mud, music and all.

So please watch this space for next year's dates and meanwhile thank you to all our performers, to our volunteers, to our sponsors  and of course to all of you who came.

Caroline Knox - Festival Director