Interview: Edith Bowman brings great festivals book to Harrogate

Starting life in a small, picturesque coastal town in Fife may not seem like the obvious place to begin a life in music but, as audiences at Harrogate International Festivals will shortly discover, it proved an ideal platform for DJ and broadcaster Edith Bowman.

Appearing at Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival next week, the BBC Radio 1 presenter will be talking about her new behind-the-scenes book, Great British Music Festivals.

Taking place at the Crown Hotel next Friday, July 3 at 3.30pm, expect Edith to share her personal photo collection, memories and behind the scenes insight into the last 20 years of festival-going.

Travelling from the muddy fields of Glastonbury to the sunny hills of Portmeirion and Festival No 6, the love of music which informs Edith’s entertaining book was formed early, in her childhood days in Anstruther, she tells me.

“I grew up listening to the music of King Creosote, who’s from my home town. He set up Home Game festival and Fence Records, his own label, in Anstruther. He didn’t want to feel as though he had to move to a different country to do anything.”

After studying at Queen Margaret University College in Edinburgh, Edith did move, however, progressing a bit at a time through the ranks of radio and TV until she had risen to the very top.

In those 20 years, she has interviewed or introduced most of the greatest music acts of our time but, when it comes to the central premise of the book, festivals, she says she’s attempted to be fair.

“The book isn’t a list of my own favourite festivals. It would be impossible to pick one. There’s ones I enjoy going to with friends, others I enjoy with my family. Different festivals offer different experiences.

“It’s impossible to be definitive, there are so many in Britain now. The book would have to be twice as big.”

Bowman, who lives in London with the husband Tom Smith, frontman of the band The Editors, has enjoyed a highly successful career since her fledgling days at the height of Britpop, covering everything from Glastonbury Festival to the Live 8 event.

Best known for helming BBC Radio 1’s afternoon show, her CV features a bewildering number of switches of channel and show.

Perhaps that’s the way of modern broadcasting and working across lots of shows certainly seems to keep this likable presenter happy.

Bowman said: “I don’t like getting complacent. I’m constantly challenging myself and learning new skills. My mum and dad installed the work ethic in me from a young age. If you work hard, you reap the benefits.”

Having a family in recent years doesn’t seem to have slowed her down.

Now aged 41, Bowman, who is also an ambassador for cycling through Sky Ride, said: “I’m baffled by the notion that just because you’re married with kids that you have to lose that part of yourself that loves music and going to festivals.

“Music has nothing to do with age. All that matters if whether it still gives you strong feelings or not.”

Her current passion is for guitar players, perhaps because she is the host on Sky TV’s Guitar Star, a new series which she describes as being about searching for “genuine talent” rather than the usual X Factor sort of thing.

Audiences at next week’s Raworth Harrogate Literature Festival will see someone who is naturally, well, natural.

“The way to approach broadcasting is to act like you’re talking to a friend or it ends up being impersonal.”