It was up bright and early to get on the road for our performance at the 2015 Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival; our sound check was planned for 10.00am and we had 131 miles to get there.
Despite an early hiccup on the M25 and a detour through Watford, the Sunday morning motorways were reasonably clear and we were able to stop off for a ‘naughty but nice’ breakfast before going on site.
Arrangements and instructions had been very well put together by the organisers and everything to do with site access went smoothly. The festival was in its third day and, when we did drive onto the site, the early morning campsite was a hive of activity, especially around the cafes and shower cabins.
We drove up to the back of the Martyrs’ Marquee and dropped all our stuff off. Once inside the marquee we were looked after extremely well by Jill Beed and her crew colleagues. This allowed us to get the instruments out of their cases early, have an initial tune-up and then let the instruments settle with the atmosphere.
We then had a good discussion with sound engineers Craig and Hugh who were doing monitors and front of house sound respectively. They were extremely calm and pleasant to work with and, as we were to find out, produced a wonderful sound not just for us but all the acts that we heard in the Marquee that day. (They also found time to discuss a couple of wider technical p.a. issues that we have been puzzling over recently which was very kind of them.)
Preparations all done, we went off to explore the festival site with its colourful mixture of campaign stalls, bookshops, eateries and boutiques. We wandered down to the Main Stage area, where speakers address audiences and bands perform from a terrace alongside the Tolpuddle Martyrs Museum that looks out onto a large open area where a substantial audience can be accommodated. By the time we got there the Thee Faction were already in full flow; their political messages driven home by a great rocky, brassy, sound. They had a good crowd in front of them who were clearly enjoying their set immensely.
We then drifted back slowly to the Martyrs’ Marquee to hear first act of the day, Alex Yeandle, getting the audience going with his excellent political songs. Great stage presence, an excellent sense of humour with important political messages, this young man’s name is one to look out for in the future. We also chatted with Tatty Smart, the MC for the day, who was extremely interested in the stories in our music. He was a lovely guy to chat with and his subsequent introduction and stage welcome for us was both well researched and generous.
Then we were on. Inspired by the great sound mix coming back to us through our monitors, we relaxed and were able to play one of the best festival half hour sets that we have done. This was our kind of audience. They were listening, interested and sympathetic to the stories we were telling. We also spiced things up further with a couple of muiñiera sets which the audience whooped their approval of.
As we came off, it was very nice to see the thumbs up from Jill and her colleagues and to have audience members keen to talk to us and, in the case of one family, a request for autographs. We also had a few minutes to chat with a member of the very talented Various Guises group before they followed us onto the stage. Very kindly, festival organiser Keith Hatch had fought his way through a busy festival site to come and ask us how things had gone. Given his busy schedule on festival days, this was very much appreciated.
As we packed our gear away, we enjoyed listening to the clever rhythms and harmonies of Various Guises – catch them if you can!
With the help of the festival crew, we safely packed our gear away in the car and went off to find some lunch – and a very decent plate of vegetable curry was had! By the time we’d done that, we were ready to join our friends from the International Brigade Memorial Trust for the annual procession into the village of Tolpuddle.
The Tolpuddle Martyrs were a group of agricultural labourers who were arrested, convicted and transported for swearing a secret oath as members of a proto-union, the Friendly Society of Agricultural Labourers. The Tolpuddle Martyrs’ Festival has taken many guises over recent decades, but its consistent purpose remains to recognise the importance of the stand taken by those six farm labourers in the struggle to establish trade union rights in Britain and around the globe. A key part of that remembrance, alongside the speeches and the music, is the procession into the village when scores of labour and related sympathetic interest organisations bring their banners which supporters and group members walk behind. This immensely colourful array is given extra rhythm and sound by brass bands, drum bands and community choirs mixed in amongst those processing. The convivial atmosphere is laced with a strong sense of commitment to defending what the original martyrs had achieved. Given the recent election outcome, this aspect was very much to the fore this year with regulars saying that the 2015 festival was one of the biggest and liveliest they had ever witnessed.
So, we set off behind the IBMT banner, with the Marx Memorial Library banner just ahead. In the hot afternoon sun, the impressively long parade snaked into the village and past the cottage where the martyrs used to meet, before returning to the festival site. Local people sat out with drinks and picnics to watch the parade pass by.
By the time we returned to the festival site, our minds were turning to the long journey home and, with concerns over Sunday evening M25 traffic, we said our goodbyes and hit the road. As it turned out, the journey home was uninterrupted, and we were back in time to have a much-needed cold beer. It had been a terrific day; one of the most memorable of all of the days out na-mara has had.
Many thanks to Keith Hatch for the original invitation to perform at the festival. Thanks also to Jill Beed and her fellow crew members for looking after us so well throughout the day and to Craig, Hugh and MC Tatty Smart for setting us up so well for a performance that will stay in our memory for a very long time. We sincerely hope to perform again at a future Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival and we wish it every success in the years ahead.