Futures Forum: Sidmouth Folk Week
Sidmouth Folk week - Welcome to Sidmouth FolkWeek!
£3,000 FolkWeek boost funds archive trail
Stuart Hughes handing over a locality fund grant to John Braithwaite for Sidmouth folk week. Photo by Terry Ife.
Stephen SumnerWednesday, July 9, 2014
The famous faces in beautiful places that have made up the 60 years of Sidmouth FolkWeek will be remembered in an eye-catching archive trail.
New for its diamond jubilee, the organisers are looking back through the annals and digging through the dark room to create an interactive record.
A £3,000 county council cash injection will also help bolster the programme with acts from around Devon, like Show of Hands’ Steve Knightley, and create a festival atmosphere around the town with flags, lights and bunting.
Festival director John Braithwaite said: “All manner of interesting, strange things have happened during the festival – remarkable happenings that will never be repeated. We wanted to illustrate them in places like Blackmore Gardens, Connaught Gardens and the Ham. A lot of people learned their craft here – it’s how Show of Hands got going. We have literally tens of thousands of photos.”
He said former festival director, keen photographer and graphic designer John Dowell pitched the idea and was ‘ideal’ to do it, while Derek Schofield’s history of FolkWeek for its 50th anniversary is proving an important resource. There will be relatively little text to accompany the images, but John said the combination will ‘hit you right between the eyes’.
More than 30 boards are being drawn up on triangular displays that will be placed around the town. They will celebrate the colourful processions, the venues that have come and gone, and the artists who have made FolkWeek what it is.
Over the course of 60 years, the world-renowned festival has hosted the likes of Martin and Eliza Carthy, Ralph McTell, Sandra Kerr – the list goes on – all of whom are returning for this diamond year.
“I’ve been supporting FolkWeek for a number of years, but this is an important year so I’ve provided a little more funding,” said Councillor Stuart Hughes, who presented a cheque from his locality budget last month. It’s important to support the festival; it brings so much to the town. Long may it continue.”
To see more on the acts performing this year, from August 1 to 8, visit www.sidmouthfolkweek.co.uk
To mark the 60th anniversary of Sidmouth FolkWeek, the Herald wants to know what it means to our readers.
£3,000 FolkWeek boost funds archive trail - What's on - Sidmouth Herald
From today's Western Morning News:
SIDMOUTH FOLKWEEK: How it all began, 60 years ago
| Posted: July 18, 2014
By Jackie Butler
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It all began with some 100 people gathering for a “seaside holiday with dancing” in the pretty, walled Connaught Gardens on the seafront at Sidmouth. Sixty years on, the East Devon town’s FolkWeek is the best-loved and most significant knees-up on the folk calendar, as well as being one of the oldest folk festivals in Europe.
From August 1 to 8, this picturesque Regency coastal resort will once again be awash with thousands of folk lovers from around the globe, its streets resounding to the tip-tapping of dancing shoes, harmonious voices raised in unison and the soothing strum of guitars, all held together by a warm communal spirit.
Sidmouth FolkWeek | Western Morning News
SIDMOUTH FOLKWEEK: Storyteller Taffy has some tall tales to tell | Western Morning News
SIDMOUTH FOLKWEEK: Martin Carthy on stage with daughter Eliza | Western Morning News
And another report today - from the Shetlands:
Sidmouth for fiddlers
Eunice Henderson's group of young fiddlers will strut their stuff at the 60th Sidmouth Folk Week.A GROUP of young Shetland fiddlers – led by fiddler and tutor Eunice Henderson – are to take part in one of the country’s most prestigious and long running folk festivals.
The South Mainland Young Fiddlers will travel to Devon for its famed Sidmouth Folk Week, which this year celebrates its 60th anniversary.
All the world’s a stage for folk fan Ruth - Stornoway Gazette
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