49 f
Rowley warns, “May we remind entrants that intimidating the judges is not in your best interests… bribing them is.”
Insisting on immersive journalistic research here too, our editor takes me to where the remarkably talented artist and dancer Alex Merry from Boss Morris (fR407) has gathered her fabulous beast creations. She helps me into ‘Ewe-genie’, her sheep costume. Alex has been snapped up to design for Gucci, so it’s the nearest I’ll ever get to modelling for them. As on a catwalk it’s forbidden to talk. Unlike on a catwalk, interaction with the audience is encouraged, but only bleating is allowed.
And so I bleat as I’m led – “right, mind this post” – with my mum right behind say- ing “Watch your step Elizabeth!” And I hiss, “ssh… I’m a sheep!” It’s important to nourish the illusion.
Earlier that day, my mum was playing by ear at a ukulele workshop whilst I was briefly part of the festival choir run by Sandra Kerr. She is superb as a performer and a teacher. Having handed out sheet music for The Seeds Of Love she points out, “The music is not the dots, the dots are simply an aide memoire,” an under- standing that should be the keystone of all musical education, but isn’t. Then, as she explains the meaning of different flowers in the folk tradition, we are reminded that the songs are a means of expressing and experiencing our direct interconnection both with each other and with our natural environment.
She says, “This song’s about sex. Keep the pace up!” And then, “When this was collected by Cecil Sharp from John Eng- land, Sharp arranged it for voice and piano and invited England to witness its perfor- mance in the local vicar’s parlour. ‘Well what do you think?’ asked Sharp. ‘Well,’ said England, ‘It don’t go like that…’”
Sandra also tells us about the annual Hiroshima Commemoration that happens at the Hub. The date, August 6th, this year marks the 73rd anniversary.
My mum goes along. “It was very moving,” she says. “Sandra led the singing, saying it was great to see so many here, and so many new faces. There was talk about Sidmouth not being a hub of left-wing political thought, not a hive of political activism. So it’s important to have this commemoration. It was started by two sisters and has been running here at the festival for 37 years.”
I’d wanted to go but had a meeting. And this is a constant problem – that everything’s always happening all at the same time. There is so much to see and do. And all of it roots you in a tradition and therefore in a sense of timelessness. It begins to feel ironic that you have to expe- rience things in a linear fashion.
On Saturday night, I finally find the
real Phil Beer. Before the concert at the Ham Marquee, he’s sitting quietly putting resin on the strings of his bow. ‘Hello mate,” he says. Steve Knightley explains their role at Sidmouth. “Patron used to mean a master who’d freed his slaves but maintained rights over them, but for us it
Hammersmith Morris on the Esplanade
means ‘you buy us a drink in the bar’.” And so, with the talented Miranda Sykes, they play a blinder to their home crowd. As ever, everyone is caught up in the com- munal singing and sense of belonging. The music resonates with its world influences and my mum says, “I didn’t know songs like this could be folk!”
Methodist Church: “Schools in Devon still face £16,259,719 in Govt. cuts.” I hope the councils that support this festival and set such store by nurturing new talent will support music education in their schools, which is always the first thing to go when education budgets are slashed.
O Because if this week shows anything
it’s the importance of live music (and danc- ing and storytelling etc., etc.) in our lives for the chance it gives us to participate in our cultural traditions and create our world anew. For these traditions build self- esteem, empathy, and a sense of continua-
The National Youth Folk Ensemble
n Monday afternoon, as we leave the town with the festi- val continuing in full flow for the rest of the week, I spot a banner hanging outside the
tion and community – and they water the roots of our identity grown deep in sub- strata shaped by the influence of many dif- ferent cultures.
As we pick up speed, my mum and I consider the kindness we’ve experienced from strangers, including singer Bryony Gordon, who helped us when we were lost. And we speak of everything we’ve seen and would like to have seen. She says, “I would have really liked to go to the talks by Peggy Seeger and Billy Bragg.”
Sidmouth is the gift that keeps on giv- ing. With our minds expanded, assump- tions challenged, and a new, shared inter- est in the contents (neither niche nor naff) that shimmer in folk’s wide net, we race to the A303.
“Mum, can you slow down?” “Oh, for God’s sake!” “Well was that like The White Heather
Club?” I ask. “Oh, no,” she says. “Not at all. It was wonderful.”
sidmouthfolkfestival.co.uk F
Photo: Kyle Baker Photography
Photo: Kyle Baker Photography
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