Miles Henderson Lived here (3)

The next few weeks were busy. Although the Writing Council hadn’t announced where the Henderson Festival would be held, Whitcombe was confident that it must be in Innesville.  “After all, it’s where Henderson lived all his life, they’d be crazy to hold it anywhere else,” he said to Barker.

They booked the town hall’s ‘big guilded room’ for the period of the festival, which coincided with of what would have been Henderson’s 150^th birthday, and also the church hall, “Just in case”. A number of speakers were approached, literary critics, celebrity fans and a few random authors who were offered the chance to plug their own work if they would just say a few nice words about Miles Henderson.

“Unbelievable,” Whicombe said to Barker. “That’s yet another one who says they’ve already been approached by Outersville. They all say they’ll have to wait for the official confirmation.” 

“That’s hardly surprising,” said Barker. “Skelton was always going to be ahead of us. I’ve heard he never sleeps, just lives 24-7 for Miles Henderson.”

Preparations for the unconfirmed festival continued. The thrice-daily Miles Henderson tours continued, media speculation about the festival location meant that there were more visitors than usual in the tours, asking the same inane questions and annoying Whitcombe by citing Skelton’s claims from the Innesville tour.

“I don’t know why I bother sometimes,” Whitcombe said to Barker on return from one such tour. “They’d all been on the Outersville tour already, and refused to accept that Innesville was where he was born, lived and wrote all his work

“Never mind that,” said Barker, “The Writing Council has announced the site of the Festival.”

“Oh no,” said Whitcombe, sensing Barker’s mood, “You don’t mean they’ve chosen Outersville?”

“No,” said Barker, “The Festival won’t be in Outersville.”

“Then we’ve got it,” said Whitcombe, “They’re holding it here.”

“No, they’re not

“You mean they’ve cancelled it?”

“No, they’re holding it in Othersville.”

“Othersville? But there’s absolutely no connection between Othersville and Miles Henderson. Have the Writing Council gone stark raving mad.”

“It’s where his sister lived.  He spent a week there once, apparently.”

“So what, he lived here. You’d hardly hold a Dickens festival in Dunganess because Dickens had a caravan holiday there.”

At that moment Skelton crashed through the doors of the Tourist Information Office.

“Have you heard?” he said.

“Yes, crazy isn’t it,” said Barker. 

“There’s absolutely no connection between Othersville and Miles Henderson. Have the Writing Council gone stark raving mad.”

“It’s where his sister lived, apparently.  He spent a week there ”

“So what, he lived here. You’d hardly hold a Dickens festival in Dunganess because Dickens had a caravan holiday there.”

“Well, there’s not much we can do now,” said Whitcombe.

“Rubbish,” said Skelton. “We don’t need the Writing Council.”

“We don’t.”

“Of course we don’t. The world and his duck know that Henderson was born here.”

“You mean in Innesville?” said Whitcombe.

“I mean he was born and lived in a house on the border of Innesville and Outesville. The whole world knows that. It’s time we admitted he, we should run a joint festival.

“We could call it ‘the Inner and Outer Miles Henderson’”, suggested Barker.

All eyes turned to Whitcombe.

“Why not. The Writing Council is making fools of themselves.  If we work together the literary world will ignore their stupid Othersville festival.  The entire literary world understands that he was born here, lived here and wrote all his work here. After all, his house is build on the very border of our towns.”

“Sod the Writing Council, we don’t need them,” said Skelton.

“That’s right, sod the writing council. First they turn down Terrence Oblong’s grant application, now a Miles Henderson festival in someone he never lived.”

“We shouldn’t stop there. We could merge our whole Miles Henderson work. That will make the literary world take notice.”

“We could do joint tours. We could have a tour of the rocks he’s sat on.”

“Ours was a stone.”

“Even better, it’ll give a bit of variety.”

“Let’s go down the Miles Tavern for a pint to celebrate.”

“Why not for a pint of Henderson’s in Outersville.”

“Why not? What better place to toast the life and work of Miles Henderson than one of the pubs he regularly drank in. We can go to the Miles Tavern next time.”