EDITOR'S PERSPECTIVE: Like an episode of Midsomer Murders

It was a literary festival you see, and among the readers was the Rev Richard Coles, who was recounting scenes from his books which, I understand, contain all kinds of unseemly deaths within the parish of Canon Daniel Clement, which gave me an idea.

Budleigh Salterton is a lovely town and home to a certain type of person. Obviously, I am stereotyping here, which none of the authors speaking at its annual literary festival would do. but the house prices are exceedingly high, its people community minded to the extent that, as well as hosting regular fetes and the like it is also home to a nudist beach, where a newsagent I once knew had a heart attack and died.

On arrival I could feel the buzz surround the event, which was “celebrating authors by the sea”. There were marquees on lawns, a huge car park and groups of people, largely dressed as if they had just come from the tennis or croquet club.

It had a nice vibe and, my other festival experiences being Glastonbury and Reading, not one I had experienced before.

Authors due to appear included Rick Stein and BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner.

Hardback books were on sale and a chatty chap flogged me a ticket to see a talk by Clarendon University Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book Adam Smyth, who I thought looked a little like Damon Albarn.

It was very Midsomer, lots of clinking of glasses, cakes and sandwiches, a row over catering and a woman who looked just like Joyce Barnaby scurrying about the place and casting knowing looks at others looking equally stressed-looking people. “It’s chaos,” one said as the queue at the in-tent catering stall edged towards double figures.

No-one was swearing except one drunk who had stumbled upon the event and was asking as to what was going on. Even she was polite though.

Yes, I was at home eher and even more so when I was told I could read an extract from my novel on the Friday night. I wasn’t exactly on the main stage, more like the one The Wurzels might play while Oasis are on the Pyramid, and I clashed with Rev Coles, but prepared like a professional, only for it to all go wrong at the last minute. A twist in the tale, you might say.

Others had read from their work, ranging from poetry to military history, a story about a dog to a children’s book and one about therapy.

I held back my alcohol intake as I prepared and wandered confidently onto the stage, taking advantage of technology as I got ready to read from my iPad, not like the rest of the environmentally unfriendly Luddites who chose to stick with the paper method.

Of course, after drawing the audience in and reducing them to an expectant silence with my introduction, the wi-fi collapsed and I stood there like the only book left on the library shelf while a tech tam (well, someone I knew) sorted it out.

There was sympathy afterwards, but really they probably thought I was attempting to be all modern when in fact I didn’t have a printer.

Next time, I won’t be clashing with a famous religious ex pop-star turned writer, I’ll be reading off a sheet of A4 and writing about the murder that took place after the catering row and the best-selling author left for dead after his book-signing.

There’s a series in that, you know, and if it goes global it should send the houses prices down there crashing and a nice house by the sea will be mind.