"We ate well & cheaply and drank well & cheaply and slept well & warm together and loved each other."
A moveable feast - Ernest Hemmingway
The British summer and festivals go together. Whatever the weather we will get ourselves outside and make the most of it, come rain or shine. We will camp in the wind and rain and cheer ourselves along with wit and humour. The themes of these festivals will be many and varied. Literature, art, nature and music will bring us together.
This weekend is the Port Eliot Festival, a literature and arts festival I discovered last summer and couldn't stop talking about for weeks afterwards. Having experienced Glastonbury which to be honest is too large for me and doesn't really make me that excited, I was bowled over by the beauty of the more intimate setting for the Port Eliot Festival on very edge of Cornwall bordering Devon. A grand old house which used to be a Priory looking out over the River Tiddy with a beautiful multiple arched railway viaduct carrying trains over the water as a backdrop.
Here amidst the many wandering footpaths I discovered a fashion show going on in the walled garden. I sampled free taster cocktails by the bucketload and learnt to do the Charleston on the river banks.Young and old mixed together with sleeping kids being carted around in straw filled wheel barrows late at night.
A piano rolled by on wheels with a hip young man playing a tune. I attended talks on restoration actions in broken societies, heard from feisty Cornish fisherman about their naughty antics against invasive Spanish fishing boats and watched wonderful wild cooking sessions.
I unintentionally gate crashed a cider and cheese tasting session, sitting myself down at the banqueting table and munching on chunks of cheese and mugs of cider not realising everyone else had paid highly for the privilege!
It was easy to get lost for a couple of happy hours wandering through the woods under a canopy of hanging lampshades and handmade stars. I attended a showing of an old black & white silent movie with a live band playing their own background music which was brilliant. There were campfires and teepees and hidden music venues that went on all night.
Below are a few photos, some are mine, some are copied from other sources.
THE PORT ELIOT FESTIVAL
The fantabulous tea ladies
Teepees in the field below Port Eliot house of the Eliot family & St Germans church. Mud dancing below.
Paper boat covered in prose
Me and the railway viaduct
Sports day races
Fashion shows
The Black cow saloon
Mud bathing!
Walled garden chill out area
Bearded men foraging berries
The Port Eliot Festival was quirky, inspiring, thought provoking and completely brilliant. I expect that is because its roots are in an eccentric British family who in previous pre health and safety days held the Elephant Fayre. (The elephant = Part of the Eliot family emblem) Last year the Earl of St Germans died, yet another death in a long line of family tragedy. Hence last years festival was unique, having an air of celebration, reverence and poignancy that can only come from the death of a larger than life character. I would love to go back but this years festival is completely sold out. Maybe next year.
Earlier on at the very start of the summer I tried out a new weekend festival l which I had avoided for the past few years thinking it might be a little bit boring. How wrong I was ...
My favourite line spoken from the main stage was this .... " The Lord works in mischievous ways! "
THE BIG CHURCH DAY OUT
Great venue at Wiston house in the lush Sussex countryside nestled in the valley below Chanctonbury ring.
A walled garden, an orchard, a pretty garden behind the house with a Cream tea tent and lots of music.
Rend Collective band -
Brilliant on the main stage but even better beside a campfire.
The Abrams brothers
Canadian brothers who were the big hit of the weekend. I didn't take very good photos of them even though I saw them play 3 times over the weekend, so I stole the ones below. Just imagine a smallish marque crammed with people bursting to overflowing, a thunder storm raging in the background and the whole crowd on their feet dancing, clapping, foot stomping and jumping off hay bales to 'the devil went down to Georgia!'
Between dodging water leaks in the old house bedrooms and entertaining us every night, they made a quick trip up to London to record a show with Radio 2's Bob Harris Country show.
Melissa & Jonathan Helser & Pete Grieg - love them!
Switchfoot ( Also Newsboys, Bethel, Hillsong and Casting Crowns to name but a few, all excellent.)
Prayer tree below
I was completely impressed by the Big Church Day Out. There is nothing like 20 thousand people gathered together to sing and pray in a field below the ancient Chanctonbury ring, especially when they are family and you share so much history, knitted together forever across huge continents and vaste oceans.
So to some festivals a little closer to home. The Albury free music festival happened a couple of Sundays ago on Albury cricket ground following up the Albury Produce show on the Saturday. This has grown from a tiny little event into a larger gathering of locals enjoying a Sunday afternoon and evening together with picnics, barbecues, dogs, children and lots of varied music.
I loved seeing this man grooving to the music in his kilt.
Tanners Hatch Folk music evenings
One hot sunny summers evening about a month ago I parked my car on Ranmore Common road and followed a wooden YHA signpost which pointed me off the tarmac and deep into the woods. I walked for half an hour deeper and deeper into the trees following a long winding track that finished at this cute cottage. There I ventured inside and found the tiny hostel slowly filling up, people emerging out of tents and lofts and the woods! The kitchen filled up, the lounge filled up, people sat on each step that led up the stairs into the loft. They crammed in along the window ledge. Some stood outside craning to peer in through the windows. Others sat outside chatting. A multitude of acoustic guitars of all shapes and sizes, mandolins, recorders, flutes and accordions played. People sang. The wine, beer and tea flowed. Round and round the room the music tumbled off the walls, the fire crackled, anyone who wanted to took a turn and sang a shanty song, or a ballad. An old folk tune. An ancient hymn. Quirky tales of woe were retold, naughty songs sung. A piece of poetry spoken. It was natural, spontaneous and completely earthy. Apparently many summers ago in the late 70's this was the place to come to escape London for a long weekend. Up to a few hundred people gathered in these woods and sang songs beside the campfire. One man told me he walked on foot from Surbiton, it took him all day. He arrived with his tent and stayed all summer!
I walked back through the woods with new new friends, no lights to shine on our path, just the quiet listening woods, a dark night, stars, a misty moon and our shadows making our way back to the main road.
While I am on the subject of live music, just a quick mention of another band that is great live -
The Moscow Drug Club. I saw them playing at Godalming Rugby club earlier in the summer.
'In a curious musical place where certain elements of 1930's Berlin Cabaret, Hot Club de France, Nuevo Tango & Gypsy campfire meet, have a few drinks & stagger arm in arm into the darkness of some Eastern European cobbled street on a mission to find the bar where Django Reinhardt & Tom Waits are having an after hours jam with the local Tziganes ...'
I plan to try out one last new thing this summer. The Firle Vintage Fair and Nightgarden. Vintage and retro abandon in the beautiful East Sussex countryside where the Bloomsbury group of bohemian artists and writers hung out at Charleston house. I get to dress up in vintage clothing and hang out with a cool crowd of hipsters. Just a couple of weeks to go. I can't wait.