Robert Ashton in Conversation With Matt Gaw @ Southwold Literary Festival

Robert is fascinated by our past, & the way it is increasingly informing our future. It was while researching his 2024 book "Where are the Fellows who Cut the Hay" that he realised that most people had lost a sense of connection to the natural world that their forebears would have taken for granted. His latest book "Down to Earth" set out to rebuild that connection, by telling the stories of people who live their lives close to the soil. From gardeners to gravediggers, farmers to forest schools, ley lines to labyrinths & even naturists, he explores our spiritual connection to the ground we walk on.
He lives with his wife Belinda in a converted barn close to the Suffolk coast & is the founder of Leiston Book Festival and chair of Leiston Community Land Trust. He is currently working on a book that explores the history of business ethics. www.robertashton.co.ukMatt Gaw is a writer & journalist. He studied Philosophy before completing an MA in Aesthetics, both at the University of Sussex. He is the author of 3 critically acclaimed works of creative non-fiction - "The Pull of the River", "Under the Stars" & "In All Weathers", which was shortlisted for the New Angle Prize for Literature in 2025. His journalism has appeared in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Times and Countryfile Magazine. Alongside his writing, he teaches part time at a state secondary school and runs creative writing workshops and online courses for adults, including for the National Writing Centre. He is currently working on his debut novel. In "In All Weathers" Matt Gaw embarks on a series of walks across Britain - through rain, fog, wind, ice and snow - to look again at our most widely accessed experience of the natural world, exploring where our weather comes from, the ways it is changing, and how we can embrace it as a positive presence in our lives. It's time to throw open the doors, window and soul to the inspiring wildness of weather.Unreserved seating.