Nigel Jay

I mentioned Nigel Jay yesterday. He was a regular on North West television screens for a number of years, reading the regional news. Now he has what seems like an idyllic lifestyle, taking the narrow boat on which he lives around the canals of Cheshire, and marketing his first novel.

(Narrow it may be, by the way, but it's also a long boat - no less than 70 feet in length, and Nigel explained that, although it suits the Cheshire canal system, it's too long for the locks in Yorkshire.)

Nigel had timed his arrival in Lymm to coincide with the Festival, and he and his partner Denise (pictured with Nigel) offered my wife and me coffee as we chatted on the canal bank about the ups and downs of the life of an author. He has set up his own publishing business, Joint Impressions, and their first title is his debut – And No Wings.

This is a chunky book – almost 700 pages – and it’s a story about the extremely topical subject of climate change. No murders in it, as far as I know, but I hope that Nigel’s entrepreneurialism is rewarded with good sales.

Festival Time

Lymm Festival is in full swing. It’s an annual highlight of the village calendar, now in its tenth year, and I’ve been involved a number of times in judging the literary competitions, though not this year – so I’ve had some time to enjoy one or two of the many events on offer.

These include last Thursday’s Foodfest, when the main road through the village is closed to traffic and occupied by stalls selling a wide range of food and drink, and the opening on Saturday of the excellent Sculpture Garden, a magical private garden on the banks of the Bridgewater Canal. At the latter event, I met Nigel Jay, a former BBC regional news reader, now an author, of whom more shortly.

On Sunday, upwards of a dozen gardens were opened to the public, and we took a number of friends along, including Kate Ellis. She’s pictured with me next to the skull and crossbones – it seemed like a suitable snap for two crime writers.

One of the gardens is owned by Matthew Corbett, who with his father Harry made The Sooty Show famous. Matthew (real name Peter Corbett – you can see him under the parasol in the bottom photo) has a marvellously designed small garden, again by the canal, but there was no sign of Sooty…