Bridport Literary Festival | Thursday 12 November

Across the downlands of Britain, giant white horses, warriors and regimental badges are etched into the chalk. These landmarks have captured the human imagination for centuries, permanently altering the contours of our countryside.

In The Tattooed Hills, Dorset based writer and publisher Jon Woolcott explores iconic sites – from the Cerne Abbas Giant to the Uffington White Horse – tracing how each generation has reinterpreted, maintained and even fabricated these hill figures.

Blending travelogue, folklore and cultural history, Woolcott examines how these carvings reflect our relationship with the land. Are they timeless symbols of local identity or mirror images of our changing anxieties?

Join the broadcaster, writer and food campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall for a feast of an event. Best known for his River Cottage TV series, bestselling books and his passion for food focused on local, seasonal and ethically produced ingredients, Hugh has reshaped the conversation around how we eat.

Now he’s determined to help us all eat more fibre, conjuring 100 recipes from 12 of the most versatile and readily available vegetables. He’ll be chewing things over with the journalist Teddy Jamieson.

“Only Hugh could take on a subject like fibre and transform it into something interesting, desirable and delicious,ˮ Meera Sodha.

For two thousand years, Cleopatra has been continually reinvented: medieval emblem of wifely devotion, Renaissance beauty, Romantic femme fatale and Hollywood temptress. Yet these archetypes tell us less about Egypt’s last pharaoh than about the preoccupations, racial politics and erotic fantasies of the cultures that constructed them.

Samuel Johnson Prizewinning biographer Lucy Hughes-Hallett examines the historical monarch alongside her legion of imaginary counterparts. From hostile Roman propaganda to modern pop culture, Hughes-Hallett disentangles the astute political strategist from centuries of myth-making. “Brilliant and discursiveˮ, Antonia Fraser.

2.30pm at The Electric Palace, 35 South Street, Bridport DT6 3NY

Tickets: £16.50 from Bridport Tourist Information Centre 01308 424901 or online Electric Palace

Care is the thread that runs through Sir Ed Davey’s life. At four, he lost his father. When his mother also became ill with cancer, Ed and his brothers nursed her until she died when Ed was just 15, and that experience was one of his main inspirations to enter politics. Now he and his wife care for their son, who has severe physical and learning disabilities.

In Why I Care, the Liberal Democrat Leader reveals his deeply moving personal story. Shedding light on the often invisible, he calls for society and government to lift up the silent carers who form the backbone of our communities. He talks about his experiences with former BBC correspondent Andrew Cassell

Event 48 | Steve Crawshaw | Prosecuting the Powerful

4pm at The Bull Hotel, 34 East Street, Bridport DT6 3LF

Tickets: £12.00 from Bridport Tourist Information Centre 01308 424901 or online via our Ticket Page

Putting a ruling dictator in the dock once seemed unthinkable. Today, as international warrants for world leaders mount, that is changing.

Author and human rights advocate Steve Crawshaw introduces his book Prosecuting the Powerful. Drawing on his career as a foreign correspondent for the Independent and senior director at both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, Crawshaw offers a front-row seat to the fight against state impunity.

From the Nuremberg trials to today’s investigations in Gaza, he brings to life the prosecutors, whistle-blowers and survivors challenging political crimes. Is the era of immunity for despots coming to an end?