Welcome to Cuckfield Life’s Cuckfield Bookfest event page. Here you will find our most recent information for everything Bookfest.

As a community interest group, Bookfest relies on the generous support from sponsors, benefactors and friends to help them host brilliant writers and new talents every year.

Bookfest returns

This year’s festival is shaping up to be our most varied yet and the first event over the opening weekend is the supper held on Friday 2nd October at Ockenden Manor with Jeremy Hunt MP, whose latest book ‘Can We Be Rich Again?’ will be published in June. The former Chancellor of the Exchequer sets out a credible case for optimism in his book when it comes to the future of Britain’s economy.

Jane Rogoyska, author of Hotel Exile, Paris in the Shadow of War, joins us on Sunday. Her latest book tells the true story of how one Paris hotel came to hold the weight of a century. Hotel Lutetia on Paris’s Left Bank, was a meeting place for Europe’s bohemian artists, a headquarters of the Nazi occupation and a shelter for camp survivors.

We are also running a very special joint literary event alongside Hurst Festival on Wednesday 16th September, where best-selling author Zadie Smith will be at Holy Trinity Church in Hurstpierpoint discussing her historical novel, Fraud. Set against the real-life Victorian scandal of the Tichborne Claimant, the book spans literary London and Jamaica’s sugar-cane plantation. There are several references to local places including a chapter entitled Cuckfield Park, so there’s a very local connection.
Tickets to the event will be available in July on the Hurst Festival website www.hurstfestival.org

Bookfest tickets go on sale in August from: www.cuckfieldbookfest.co.uk

Sampling the delights of Cuckfish at MDR

Mid Downs Radio has continued to broadcast 24/7 throughout the pandemic from studios on the first floor of the Princess Royal Hospital. The station is a registered charity and provides music, entertainment and regularly updated information on health, hospital, social care and community matters to patients, staff and visitors to the hospital complex as well as to the wider community.

All the MDR presenters are volunteers who host a wide variety of shows. Production Manager Paul Barnett presents his ‘Tiffin with Paul’, an eclectic mix of music, poems and lively banter with co host Cathy, on Thursday afternoons from 3-5 pm. He has also been seen regularly in the Outside Broadcast Unit compering Cuckfield Christmas Night with MDR Technical Manager Gary Simons.

MDR has been delighted to help promote the brilliant Cuckfield Bookfest since its inception as well as the Music Festival, the 100th anniversary of Cuckfield Tennis Club and the opening of Cuckfish. Since launching the Listen Live service through the website and TuneIn App there has been an increase in listeners. MDR continues to support other charities and organisations by publicising their work and events through interviews and in some cases providing promotional fillers that go out regularly on air. If you would like to know more about promoting your charity through MDR please contact Wendy Swinton-Eagle at wendy@mdr.org.uk.

MDR funds itself through Grants & Membership fees but mainly through hiring out our distinctive Outside Events Unit and now the new fully equipped Mobile Disco complete with professional DJ, Lee Gillet all at very competitive rates.

To find out more about Mid Downs Radio, to read our latest magazine or to Listen Live please visit our website at www.mdr.org.uk