Leigh Folk Festival

June 21, 2015 by Ray Morgan

This coming weekend, Leigh will be taken over by a wealth of musicians, poets, dancers and revellers. From Thursday night to Sunday evening, our little fishing village is going to be host to the Leigh Folk Festival. In its 24th year, the festival is huge, and mostly free to attend (apart from a couple of specialist ticketed events) but - here's the best bit - it's entirely run by volunteers. Over the course of the whole year, a team of volunteers work hard to make it the biggest and best fest yet.

It starts on Thursday at Squeeze, for a lovely wee folk night called - aptly - Squeezebox, then continues on Friday night at the Fishermens' Chapel (New Road Methodist Church) for a special event featuring Wizz Jones. Wizz is a fantastic guitarist who has influenced Clapton, Keith Richards and Jimmy Page. Saturday is an all-day affair in Leigh Library Gardens - all free - with another ticketed evening event (Dick Gaughan) in St Clement's Church alongside other gigs sprouted up throughout the town including at Elsie's Place cafe, the Crooked Billet, the Clarendon Scout Hut and The Broadway pub.

Sunday sees the entire Old Leigh High Street taken over by musicians and dance acts - so fingers crossed for the weather! - in a beautiful swarm of culture and music. It truly is a special weekend, and in a brilliant act of defiance goes head to head with some other festival (Glasto-something?) - but it's never affected the crowds.

Last year I wrote a poem dedicated to the festival, a love song of sorts, so I thought I'd share it with you:

The grass of the Library Gardens is
warm and springy underfoot,
the park is pregnant with
welling families,
drunk-walking toddlers and
the first MC steps to the stage.
The bursting fizz-scack of an opened cider can,
as the musician tunes up.
Children beg for paper bags of fudge
that parents will find,
greasy and translucent in a kagoule pocket
in three months' time.
There is the hiss and pop of sausages on a grill,
burger buns and cups of tea,
a queue for ice creams, and sugar on the breeze.
A man in a suit with a
flowerpot on his head dances,
clutching a boom box;
confusing children and
amusing grown-ups.
Music fills the air; people wander,
sit on rugs,
and hardcore folkers stand with hands on hips
like teapots
with pewter tankards swinging from their belts.
Then, it's Sunday,
the punters have taken their sunkissed faces home
and refreshed overnight, ready to
sweep down the hill to the Old Town.
More folk-loving folk, and there's chips,
seagulls eating chips,
buggy wheels smashing over chips,
poets and fiddle players queuing for chips,
chips and cockles,
cider and clogs,
shanties and blues,
a procession and booze,
and music,
and music,
and music,
and music.
People fall in love with a new style,
there's noise and chatter, and all the while
there's dropped cornets,
and puppets,
a man dressed as a giant baby
but it's ok, it's ok,
on this day of the year only it's ok.
And the Sunday evening rolls around,
and the tin-rattlers stop making their sound;
we vow to buy more records,
and not eat so many chips,
and not drink so much beer,
but we have a list as long as our arms of
new music to investigate,
and new pages to like on Facebook,
and it's only a matter of days before
we dust down our guitars or
ukuleles or
violins and
the folk is instilled in us all,
in our hearts and ears and
in our chippy tummies.
Until next year.