It’s hard to believe that the Hay Festival is 25 years old; it feels as though the (very welcome) explosion of literary festivals is a far more recent phenomenon. But then Hay was the first major festival of its type – setting a precedent for the more-than-140 others that will take place in the UK this year – and is now one of the largest in the world. But its founder Peter Florence is not happy to settle at that – this year’s programme includes music, film, theatre and art, as well as the usual roster of the most prestigious writers, thinkers and poets alive today. And Hay is expanding outwards too – to Spain, Hungary, Lebanon, to India, Colombia and Bangladesh, to Mexico, to Kenya… Peter has seemingly limitless ambition and energy. Here he takes a quiet moment to answer our questions…

TT: Hay was the first in the modern breed of literary festivals and since it launched, hundreds of others have sprung up around you. What keeps people coming?
PF: However digitally connected we all are there’s always a keen human need to sit down together and talk. In a complex secular world we still need our feast days. Hay is far enough away from everywhere else to create its own orbit. It’s the only place you’ll find a B&B selling itself on ‘no wifi, no tv. BOOKS and CONVERSATION.’…