It was a perfect warm evening in the lovely town of Lichfield which provided a perfect setting for presenting Top of the Sixties to the world. Author David Ayres, his stories and Lichfield all hail from the Midlands so the stage was set.

One of the attendees was David’s roommate during his first year at university and they hadn’t set eyes on each other since then! So it turned out to be quite a bit of a reunion as well.

David held a lovely talk about why he wrote Top of the Sixties: ‘It is my attempt to put some kind of interpretation on a world that has disappeared’ and ‘I hope you’ll enjoy reading it, because that way of life seems long ago now and the world didn’t turn out the way we thought it would’.

David continued by treating us to a lovely passage from A Sack of Spuds: it told us about how teenager Keith is dealing with housewives who are trying to chat him up under the watchful eye of Me Davies, the fruit and veg man.

People queuing up to get their copy of Top of the Sixties signed.

Another happy fan

David all ‘signed out’

I would like to give special thanks to Fiona Stuart, Lichfield festival director, and an excellent host of the event, and her team for making this such an enjoyable event. Enjoy the gallery of pictures of distinguished authors appearing at the festival.