KAY DUNBAR
Date Posted: 1st August 2025
A youngish couple were buying sculpture in Castlegate House garden in 2004. I had just had my first book published, The Painted Letters (its now out of print). Kay and Stephen were the founders of the well known LitFest in Dartington Devon where they lived and had made it a great success. They had been sent to see me by Michael Baron, an ideas man who lived at Loweswater and ran poetry readings at the gallery .* He had run the idea of a literature festival in Keswick past me and I had advised him to turn to the professionals and here they were in my garden and that’s how it all began. They invited me to speak about my book at Words by the Water at the theatre in Keswick and make my stage debut.
Although I was an enthusiastic patron of the theatre that was my first time on the stage talking about Percy Kelly and the letters he sent to Joan David. It went on from there and I found myself chairing famous writers, attending the writing courses they ran in Italy and becoming a writer myself.
Best of all Kay and Stephen became close friends. We were devastated when, in 2018, it was confirmed that Kay had PSP – a dreadful terminal disease which slowly takes away everything except an awareness of what was happening to her. Words by the Water continued until Covid hit in 2020 when her husband Stephen who was now a carer and their manager Leah had to give up.
Kay died yesterday 30th July at home with her family in Dartington. She was awarded an MBE for services to Literature in 2022 and was able to accept it at Windsor Castle in a wheelchair. She was a wonderful human being.
With the help of Gwenda and Lucy Matthews who run Bookends in Keswick and Carlisle together with Leah, Varnell Words by the Water was revived in 2024 and 2025 and a programme is now being put together for March 2026. This is Kay’s legacy.
*I last saw Michael Baron 2 years ago in Cockermouth. He was 95 and still going strong (and still having ideas!)