Cheltenham

The Cheltenham Literature Festival is 70 this year – the longest running Literature Festival in the world, and the first ever. Set up by G.A.M. Wilkinson, the council’s Spa and Entertainments manager, this small but perfectly formed town in the heart of the rolling Cotswold countryside gave birth to an idea that has taken hold all over the world, to the enormous benefit and joy of readers and writers everywhere. 70 years! With some very rough back-of-the-envelope calculations that’s about…