The Swindon Festival of Literature begins next week. MARION SAUVEBOIS catches up
with writer and funnyman Tony Hawks ahead of his show at the Arts Centre

 

“LOVE thy neighbour”.

Tony Hawks was vaguely familiar with the theory but putting it into practice was quite another matter, it turned out, when the hardened Londoner moved to rural Devon.

It all started with a dream or rather a moment of clarity in the middle of the night during a trip to The Philippines.

Tony sat upright, awoke his partner and blurted out that they should up and leave the capital and settle down in the countryside.

And so they did.

“I had a thought in the middle of the night that we didn’t need to live in London any more,” says the writer, who will visit the Swindon Festival of Literature on May 7.

“We visited friends in Devon and did it all really quickly. We found a house and went from city dwellers to living in the middle of nowhere.”

Tony was never one to back down from a decision, no matter how utterly bonkers. After all, he is the man who hitchhiked across Ireland lugging a fridge on a trolley and wrote an entire book about his adventures.

The whole idea was not new, he insists. He was shown the way by an Irishman, presumably in a bit of pickle.

“The first time I went to Ireland, I was picked up at Dublin Airport and 15 minutes into the drive we saw a bloke hitching with a fridge,” he explained.

“We think that his van probably broke down, he had bought a fridge and he thought ‘I’m just going to go home anyway’. I made a £100 bet with a friend that I could do it. A part of me was fascinated to see what would happen. And it was amazing.”

This time however, uprooting himself (not to mention his partner) was not a wager. He was in it for the long haul and wholeheartedly embraced country life and his village’s hallowed traditions, no matter how perplexing.

“It was a shock,” he admits. “Things we thought we would be good at like growing our food, was much harder. We had this picture in our head but the picture is never like reality – we were caught out. We didn’t really speak to our neighbours in London and here, everybody says hello to each other – that takes some getting used to. We thought we would go for it. I launched myself into the community.”

He swiftly became chairman of the village hall and signed up to the ill-advised (in retrospect) local tractor ride, not to be confused with a race, which it certainly was not.

“You just ride a tractor around for an extraordinary amount of needless hours and just follow each other – it’s not a race – stop, have lunch and start doing it again.

“My brakes failed going down a steep hill. I had a choice of smashing into a vintage tractor or going into a hedge. I chose the hedge. Everybody was a bit blase about it actually. You’re going very slowly so you’re not running around out of control, but you can’t stop the bloody thing.”

Again, prompted by his publisher, he kept a diary of the vagaries of life “in the middle of nowhere” and proceeded to turn this tale of trial and error into another tome, Once Upon A Time in the West...Country.

To spice things up, Tony couldn’t resist taking up a new zany challenge: to cycle coast to coast in Devon with a micro-piglet named Titch in a pouch.

“That’s the wacky adventure in the book. It was 180 miles and I think we now have the world record for the furthest distance cycled with a pig. I’m trying to get it checked. I did it as a fundraiser for a children’s charity.”

There may be similarly daft challenges looming in the future, all to be recorded for posterity. But whether animal, vegetable or mineral still remains to be determined.

“It will have to be a good idea, another white good maybe. Something will emerge I’m sure.”

Tony Hawks will be at the Arts Centre on Devizes Road on Thursday, May 7 at 6.30pm. Tickets are £8. To book call 01793 524481 or visit swindontheatres.co.uk.