This event should be high on every free-thinking person’s bucket list – a warm and generous helping of traditional English eccentricity, in a beautiful setting.
I had never been before but knew the village and its ancient sycamore, meeting place of 6 agricultural workers who were expelled to Australia for campaigning against poor pay and conditions; I helped to select the tree as one of 50 Great British Trees many years ago. It’s normally a quiet place of thatched cottages and tranquil streams – except for the third weekend in July, when thousands of trade unionists march along the high street with full brass bands and banners to honour the 6. In recent years this has developed into a 3 day festival of talks, debate and music – and it’s not what I expected at all...
For a start it would be possible to avoid the politics all together, and some people do. No-one harangued me or tried to influence my thinking, it was more like a large country fete run by well-meaning socialists. There were lots of stimulating things going on, but they were all optional. I started with a film, Cultures of Resistance, shown in a rare 1960s cinema coach, apparently commissioned by Tony Benn to show public information films.
Maxine Peake did a great Q&A about how to succeed in acting without compromising your principles, and there was a fantastic comedian, Elvis McConnogal, who had plenty of material given the current political chaos. There was wonderful food, including a travelling community Real Food shop and the WI doing salads in in the village hall, and lots of stalls covering everything from Cuba and LGBT supporting migrants to Greenpeace and the RSPB, plus all the unions of course. Instead of the morning papers I got a free Morning Star (which seemed remarkably conventional , even covering sport and tv. I may well buy it in future).
And the music? Well, the big names were Dreadzone, Ferocious Dog, Lisa Knapp and Tom Robinson Band. The latter was way better than he had any right to be, with great new material, sing-a-long classics and a genuinely warm audience rapport. He gave a solo spot to his guitarist, Mancunian Lee Forsyth Griffiths, definitely a songwriter to look out for. Worth mentioning that his stage, along with most of the festival site, is on a distinct slope, suggesting band and audience would all end up at one end after the encores.
Ferocious Dog were fantastic as always, channeling early Levellers and the Pogues and playing to the ideal audience for their political songs of sacrifice and history. Said audience did suffer a bit from seeing them outside mid-afternoon on one of the hottest days of the year, and on an even steeper slope than Tom Robinson...but no obvious casualties.
Best discovery of the weekend were local folk rock heroes Skimmity Hitchers, impossible not to dance to, every one of their humorous songs about either cider or modern life in Devon or both. It was great to see an old friend Jon Langford of the Mekons , here playing songs about 19th C Welsh riots with his band the Men of Gwent, along with lots of Mekons stuff.
Rob Heron and his Teapad Orchestra won me over, playing bluegrass and 1940s Americana but almost all original songs, many set in their native Newcastle.
The highlight of the weekend? It had to be the march. Like the Durham Miners Gala but in a totally rural setting, and thousands strong. I walked with the actors union Equity, who had a great band of elderly musicians blasting out rousing tunes, and briefly helped Cambridge politicos Rebel Arts Radio carry their banner. It felt great to be part of it all, whatever your beliefs.
The climax was a speech by one J Corbyn Esq, a great chance to hear him direct without the filter of a biased media. For what it’s worth he seemed to me a good man, kind and honest, old school Labour, though maybe not the strongest speaker. I was a bit disappointed that, surrounded by adoring fans of all ages in a huge variety of JC t-shirts, he didn’t deliver a rallying cry to vote for him in the Labour election. But then that was Tolpuddle in a nutshell – understated, warm and human, politics plus, with a smaller p than expected and a bigger heart.
Kevin Hand
