ANDREW McMillan, poet in residence at Ilkley Literature Festival, paid a touching tribute to his dad when he introduced him at King's Hall on Tuesday. Ian McMillan, Bard of Barnsley, confessed to wondering at times if he was Yorkshire enough. He certainly convinced the audience with a sparkling performance of tales and anecdotes – all true, amazingly. From the assistant crawling across the studio floor, with the missing newspapers for his TV review spot, to his rules for Yorkshire pudding, it made for great entertainment. There were serious moments too as he referred to the importance of libraries in his youth and evoked the spirit of place, notably in the difficulties communities faced in the 1980s pit closures.

Anthony Clavane picked up this theme as he presented A Yorkshire Tragedy, the third in a series examining identity, belonging and the rise and fall of tightly knit communities. This is exemplified in the decline of Yorkshire sport, the direct result of the importance of money and its concentration in London. The 1980s saw not only the miners’ strikes and the death of the steel industry, but also the Valley Parade fire and Hillsborough – both disasters waiting to happen as profit took precedence over the safety and comfort of fans. Olympic success masks the problem, as these justly acclaimed heroes are individuals not team players. Political will is needed to reverse a trend which has seen a 14 per cent decline in participatory sport in Yorkshire since 2012.

Political responsibility is also at the heart of Gillian Slovo’s Ten Days. This thrilling page-turner is a by-product of a verbatim play based on extensive interviews with those involved in the Tottenham riots of 2011. It charts the escalation of unrest in a fractured south London community in the wake of a death when police misjudge an incident. The pain and the dignity of ordinary people – and ordinary policemen – are brilliantly conveyed as self-serving and venal politicians and ambitious commissioners try to outmanoeuvre each other. They have no regard for, and little understanding of, the needs of those they are supposed to serve.

Another topical issue is dealt with by Emily Dugan, senior reporter at The Independent. The migrant crisis looms large on the political horizon and our collective failure to deal with it is lamentable. In ten portraits, Finding Home takes us inside the lives of individual migrants, many of whose experiences are truly heart-rending. Her integrity as a reporter is demonstrated by the bus journey she took from Bucharest to London, in company with people leaving homes and families in search of survival, never mind a “better life”. Not all of them are angels, by any means, but they all command compassion. One portrait is of Boston, the Lincolnshire town with a large migrant population and where integration has signally failed, resulting in yet another fractured community.

War is much in our minds at the moment. Louis de Bernières’ The Dust that Falls from Dreams is inspired by his grand-mother, whose first fiancé was killed in action in 1915. It is the first of a trilogy, a family saga whose central characters are four sisters and it explores the way they and their circle cope with the dramatic effects of WWI. Presenting at Clarke Foley, Louis de Bernières spoke of his family and his influences, also treating us to a moving reading of poems.

WWII is the setting for A Country Road, a Tree, in which Jo Baker fleshes out research with imagination to tell the story of Samuel Beckett’s work with James Joyce in Paris and his later experiences in the French Resistance. It is a captivating read and adds a welcome dimension to a writer whose work is often deemed difficult and whose character is perceived as distant. On the contrary, he comes over as brave, principled and warm.

Claude Monet was directly affected by WWI, having a son who fought at Verdun. Monet himself spent the war years at Giverny, obsessively painting his magnificent water lilies. Ross King presented his Mad Enchantment, the story behind the paintings, with huge enthusiasm and scholarship – and stunning slides – to the delight of a packed house in the Wharfeside theatre.

At St Margaret’s, Rachel Joyce made a welcome return to Ilkley with her new collection of short stories, A Snow Garden. She sees stories as a way of grappling with the personal issues we face and helping to imagine what we don’t understand. Compassion is a key feature of these engaging tales, whose characters recur tantalisingly in one another’s stories. Indeed, some of them had walk-on parts in Joyce’s best-sellers, Harold Fry and Queenie Hennessey.

by Judith Dunn