the king of hay in exile in high germany

on 1 april 1977, bibliophile richard booth conceived a publicity stunt in which he declared hay-on-wye to be an 'independent kingdom' with himself as its monarch and a national anthem written by les penning. in 1978 hay led the world by being the first european nation to quote ‘free itself of the tyranny of the bureaucrats in brussels’ by quitting the EEC. the tongue-in-cheek micronation of hay-on-wye has subsequently developed a healthy tourism industry based on second hand books and is currently twinned with timbuktu.

to think it all began with a pamphlet entitled ‘abolish the wales tourist board’ .

there was a celebratory parade recently (but horsemouth missed it). king richard is in exile in high germany having sold-up in 2005 and even selling up the honesty bookshop (where books go for sky burial) in 2012 (though there’s still the king of hay bookshop in castle street).

hay’s has other claims to fame - mally from hackney scene stalwarts zip zip undo me was a farmer for many years in nearby clyro, john ellis (one of the last hangmen) retired here...