f42 160 Years Of Fun
From small beginnings to major successes, via floods, hurricanes and the club tent burning down. Colin Irwin marks this year’s three big UK festival anniversaries: Sidmouth (60), Cambridge (50) and Towersey (50).
an idle seven hours or so waiting for the boiler man, I attempted to count them with the widely varying total averaging out around 520. Five hundred and frig- gin’ twenty of the little blighters, rang- ing from the Gerry Rafferty tribute festi- val in Renfrewshire to the third Wales International Harp Festival, Shetland Fiddle Frenzy and the Ethno Ambient festival in Croatia.
A ’Twas all very different back in the
day, of course. The day in question being Saturday July 30 1955, when a small group of enthusiasts assembled at the Devon sea- side town of Sidmouth to enjoy a week of social and ritual dancing. These were aus- tere post-war times. Anthony Eden had just succeeded Churchill as Prime Minister in a country where a state of emergency had been declared during rail and dock strikes; Ruth Ellis became the last woman hanged in Britain; and Slim Whitman’s Rose Marie knocked Alma Cogan’s Dream- boat off the top spot to begin its eleven- week run at No 1 in the UK hit parade.
Meanwhile, down in Devon, some- thing stirred. For a couple of years Sid- mouth holidaymakers had been enjoying the folk dance displays performed as part
s ever, the April edition of this splendid organ included a super, bumper guide to this year’s “European folk, roots and world music events”. In
of a tour organised by the South West wing of the English Folk & Dance Society and when the Society’s director Douglas Kennedy suggested another event to sup- plement the interactive dance events he’d already instituted at Stratford-on-Avon, Sidmouth was the nominated venue for a new “holiday with dancing”.
So, under the stewardship of area organiser Nibs Matthews and artistic direc- tor Margaret Grant, a hundred-or-so peo- ple paid £4 per couple or £2/10/- (single males) and £2 (females) to join the fun in that first week in August for the week-long round of displays, instruction and socialis- ing that heralded the Sidmouth Festival. Raising the rafters in the opening dance at the ramshackle old Girl Guide Hut on that first Saturday, events then moved to the Manor Pavilion, spilling into exuberant performances along the Promenade, set- ting the warm, atmospheric tone that’s characterised this unique event ever since.
Celebrating its 60th birthday this year, Sidmouth remains the granddaddy of British folk festivals, albeit one that – by virtue of its location, strong dance roots, community involvement and holidaymak- ing feel – could never ever be replicated.
And this may be the crux of a success- ful festival. The one thing Sidmouth has in common with those other two great avun- cular denizens of the festive calendar, Cambridge and Towersey – which both cel-
ebrate 50th birthdays this summer – is that each has enjoyed continuity and consisten- cy. While always reliant on an army of vol- unteers to put them on stage, Cambridge and Towersey have each effectively only had two directors during their entire exis- tence, which in turn has helped establish a vigorous sense of identity, in no small way attached to location, character and con- nection with their customers. Sidmouth did switch to the more expansive facilities available among the bright lights of Exmouth in 1959 but soon saw the error of its ways and, after a lukewarm reception there, returned to the welcoming arms of its spiritual home, where it has remained ever since. While acknowledging the restrictions respectively created by the locations of Cherry Hinton Hall and a one- pub village in Oxfordshire, Cambridge and Towersey have remained resolutely attached to the same places where they started, recognising picturesque surround- ings are an essential part of their soul.
As with any successful long-running enterprises, they all have their detractors – Cambridge and to a lesser extent the other two have been accused of propagating a star system deemed inappropriate in the folk world and have had to withstand some demanding economic challenges, funding issues, turbulent times, cultural changes and Acts of God, notably the mer- ciless vagaries of the British summer.
The enormous hi-tech outdoor main stage at Cambridge Folk Festival 1972, with Steve Tilston wowing the assembled crowds…
Photo: Jo Gedrych
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