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The Best Of Folk

A great weekend, loved the way that the children were catered for.

Joy Byart-Long

Superb Folk Festival! Not too big, and very friendly. Great music, dance and fun. I’m smiling so much, my jaw aches!

Arthur Smith

Friendly fun festival, with good music, good beer and beautiful surroundings.

Dean Clarke

First time, and already booked the time off work for next year. Loved it 🙂

Martyn Goodwin

Lovely vibe lovely people amazing food and drink.

Alistair Praet

Excellent family friendly folk festival with great atmosphere.

Ron Jackson

A fine folk festival with class acts from around the world.

Steven Atkins

Probably the best festival I have been to every pub in the town also had entertainment certainly will be back.

Bob Johnson

Best Folk Festival i was ever at…

John O’Dowd

A great traditional folk gathering in the Autumn. Love it.x

Mo Hatton

Warm and cuddly festies with besties xxx

Netty Charnley

Loved all the dance and music shows/ workshops- fabulous ukulele and samba drumming- really quite amazing. Thank you for a wonderful weekend!

Joni Rose Stephens

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Comments (3)

Roger Mills
ReplyDecember 31, 2014

We two ( me 67, she 70 ) only live “down the road” in Tewkesbury, so we came up this year (2014 ) for the day.We were able to park in town easily,and soon found lots of pub “sessions” where I could join in with my guitar .Many of the “session” musicians were very good, and the food ( pig roast ) was great. So we have decided to attend for the whole weekend next year (2015) and stay on the campsite ; yes,we STILL camp at our age ,especially at “bunkfest ” .

Roger Percussionist (ex RN ) with “Happenstance” Border Morris , Winchcombe.
Dawn Skye
ReplySeptember 26, 2013

A personal view.
We started going to Bromyard Folk festival in 1971 and went nearly every year until moving to Poole and finding that it clashed with Swanage festival. So this was the first visit for a few years and this time the rest of English Miscellany were having their AGM and we were on our own!

We are ‘across the board’ folkies, we started as singers, got into ceilidhs, were founder members of English Miscellany and so got into Morris but have recently rediscovered club type Social Dance.

The printed programme was terrible! The picture illustrating the “Day of Dance for Dancers” was a knees up Ceilidh picture, totally inappropriate and misleading. Some of the dances had one time in the general programme and a different time in the section for dancers. The workshop info just said Morris/ Clog for Saturday morning and Morris for Sunday. I was able to find a proper programme of workshops when I enquired specifically at the information centre but they had only one copy so photocopied it for me!

The Morris workshop was very good and well run by the superb Fool’s Gambit. For those who missed this exciting team at Chippenham, Sidmouth or elsewhere, they are a young mixed Cotswold side (aged 15 to 24 I believe) who dance with amazing skill and vigour. Edd Bennett from St Albans is one of their most experienced and stylish dancers! There were only about 16 punters there!

On Sunday Camden Clog did a workshop to a handful of people, that was run by Ruth Rose! The next St Albans generation are doing us proud!j

The Saturday Dancers Day of Dance programme was excellent. It started with some early ie 50’s, contra dances which were fun called by Joe Hodgson, a local, very jolly caller. He had a lovely quote from Ralph Page referring to that well known American contra dance “The Geud man of Ballangigh”

I really enjoy Madeleine Smith’s calling, she was doing Dances Across the Centuries, so two of my favourite dances learnt in the 70’s and rarely danced since,’Gathering Peascods’ and ‘Picking up Sticks’ were a treat.

We then had an amazing pastie for lunch while watching excellent Morris displays. Years ago Bromyard was Morris Ring sides only so no women at all. Now they invite only the very best women’s sides this year it was Silkstone Greens two ladies rapper sides and Camden clog. We then went down to “meet” Keith Donnelly, one of our favourite entertainers, down the hill in the campsite.

We were back for Madeleine’s Pat Shaw session. She was there when he was teaching and even helped with some of his final tuning of dances so who better! It was a lovely session and she can get dancers, of all levels, through amazingly challenging dances with her superb calling! The Falconers were great especially playing the tune Thomas Tallis’s canon’ for the Dance ‘John Tallis canon’, their rapport with Madeleine was lovely.

A dinner break had been planned from 5.15 until 6.30 an excellent plan if there had been any places open to eat! We found a tea shop that I think had been about to shut and had a wonderful wholesome meal. We chatted to a couple we had just met in their 30’s who had just discovered English Dance and were very excited by it.

The calling for the evening dance was shared by Madeleine and Joe with the Boys of Oak Hill. We were able to do the first half, watch a very slick girl’s Rapper side and then go to the Theatre. There we saw a lovely show put on by the talented people of Folk at the Fold all about the history of growing your own interwoven with a gentle tale of romance. We had planned to go down to the Ceilidh but despite it looking really good with Hekety and Baz Parkes we were just too tired and crawled into bed surrounded by the lovely music.

Sunday had an uninspiring start but we watched the Young Bromyard Singer Competition, which is always inspiring. More Morris, Fools gambit, Camden Clog and the jolly Bristol Morris until rain stopped play. Back down to the campsite to catch the end of the set by The Teacups, recent graduates from the Newcastle traditional music degree course, lovely! Some final ceilidh dancing rounded off our weekend though the festival went on until 11 that night .

We met some people down on the campsite who said that they would like to go into town but found the hill too challenging, so it would be good to have a minibus as some of the folkies get older but there again Bromyard always has loads of youngsters performing, attending, calling, playing, and that is great to see!
Spike
ReplySeptember 17, 2013

This is how a folk festival should be! A folk festival newby
was raving about it to me, including being amazed at how inclusive it was particularly age-wise. I don’t have any other quotes as he had to run off to see something else!

I had been told about the number of music sessions in the town pubs and was not disappointed. They were all friendly and allowed anyone to start a tune – no styles barred.

My one criticism is the lack of any dance floor in the concert tent for bands that play seriously danceable music.

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The Best Of Folk

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