Fifty and out for festival

Bob Dylan went electric, the Beatles played Shea Stadium, Mick Jagger declared he couldn’t “get no satisfaction” and the Towersey Festival was born.

One way or another 1965 was a pretty good year for music, you have to admit, almost 50 years on.

While the booing of Bob and the story of the Fabs and the Stones have continued to be the subject of detailed studies, we have had to wait quite some time for a book about the festival that takes place every August near Thame.

And as a story of how a truly inter-generational event can be created from humble musical beginnings, you would be hard pressed to find many more heart-warming festival stories than the history of Towersey.

Now recognised as one of the key dates in the British folk festival calendar, the first Towersey Festival was launched to raise funds for the village hall, a building that commemorated 14 local men who had lost their lives in the First World War.

That first Towersey Festival was on August 30, 1965 (the word ‘Village’ was added in 1968), and included a village parade, with decorated floats and tractors, a cricket match, an exhibition of children’s art, Morris dancing and a barbecue.

Now it attracts audiences of 10,000 people to the village, which has a population of under 1,000, and over the last decade has raised more than £250,000 for local charities, trusts and organisations.

This year’s festival, running from Thursday, August 21, to Monday, August 25, will feature music from the likes of Richard Thompson, The Bootleg Beatles and Seth Lakeman.

The story of the festival is told in a new book Towersey Festival: 50 Years in the Making, written by Derek Schofield, a former college manager, who since 2005 has been editor of English Dance & Song magazine.

Derek Schofield, 63, went to his first Towersey Festival in 1977 and has been turning up every year since the early 1990s.

Oxfordshire's Megan Henwood will launch this year's event

His book features some 300 photographs, stories from festival-goers and interviews with many individuals who have shaped the event.

He said: “It was boom time for folk music in the mid-60s and folk festivals blazed the trail for pop festivals that came in their wake. Towersey has always been based on British traditional folk music.

“Over the years the festival has got bigger and taken up more farmland on the edge of the village. After the village hall was refurbished, money from the festival helped to buy the village playing field.

“Thousands of pounds have been raised by the festival for community groups and good causes.”

Visiting the 1966 festival, the Thame Gazette asserted that Towersey was the “little village with the big ideas”.

Somehow, those initial ideas have never lost their appeal.

While this year’s headliner, Richard Thompson, as a former member of Fairport Convention, manages to combine being a hero in the world of folk music with being one of the greatest living players of the electric guitar, Towersey is not a festival normally associated with star names.

Mr Schofield said: “Towersey doesn’t have the big-name band focus of [Fairport Convention’s Oxfordshire festival] Cropredy. It’s very much a festival where people in the audience sing themselves and grandparents and their grandchildren dance together “Radio 2 presenter Ken Bruce lives in Towersey and is a great supporter of the festival.”

Discussing the festival’s appeal and longevity, festival patron Roy Bailey, who has appeared at 35 of the 50 Towersey Festivals, including the first festival, said: “Children play safely and many lifelong friendships have been developed here. People met here and got married here and generations of families return every year.”

But this year’s landmark festival will be tinged with sadness, for it will be the last time the festival is held in the village.

Joe Heap, director of the festival and grandson of the founder Dennis Manners, explained: “Over 30 years the festival has changed venues several times. Now we are going to relocate to the Thame Showground. We’re not being forced out, but circumstances have led us to it.

“The Thame Showground is a great venue. It has easy access with proper tarmac roads, leading up to the multiple gates for cars. The land is well drained so there will be less mud. The biggest advantage is that the whole festival will be on one field, not split up around several sites in Towersey.”

Festival director Joe Heap

The festival was expanded after the 1966 festival to three days, with two marquees introduced in 1980 — one for song, and one for dance. Both stages remain, with the dance tent now known as The Ceilidh and the song tent renamed The Big Club.

In 1986 the festival was hit by Hurricane Charley, pulling tents from the ground and flinging them across the site.

Even worse was feared in 1991 when it was reported that the entire village was ablaze, prompting the swift arrival of the fire service. It was, in fact, a purpose built ‘shanty town’ bonfire on the festival site, which was perfectly safe.

Eliza Carthy made her Towersey Festival debut in 1989 as part of The Watersons and The Waterson Women. She made her first ever solo appearance anywhere at 1994’s Towersey. Fittingly she will be back again this year as musical director of the one-off concert marking 75 years of folk music Topic Records.

For all its English folk roots, the festival has long embraced ‘world music’, welcoming performers from many different countries.

The acclaimed Oxfordshire songwriter Megan Henwood will headline a special Towersey Festival 50th Anniversary launch at Thame’s The First Thursday Music Club, in Cornmarket. The BBC Radio 2 Young Folk Award winner will take part in a pre-festival evening that will include the screening of a special Towersey 50th film.

Towersey’s Memorial Hall had opened in 1925 as a tribute to those who died in the Great War but it started out with buckets instead of toilets and one cold water tap. The festival ensured proper toilets and a refurbishment, and the hall is still used today.

In a sense the festival has been a victim of its own success. What started as a one day festival has grown to take up more farm fields for parking and camping.

About 70 per cent of the festival takes place on the fields of a farm, where lease issues and a planning application for commercial development left organisers having to find a new home.

For some, like Ross Dike, a long time member of the Towersey Village Festival committee, things will never quite be the same.

“If it leaves Towersey, it can never have the same atmosphere,” he said.

However, Mr Heap remains confident that in its new home the festival will be bigger and better.

But all that is in the future.

This time around we should just join festival goers and villagers in raising a glass one more time to “the little village with the big festival”.

Towersey Festival: 50 Years In The Making is published by Mrs Casey Music Ltd (£20). It is available from towerseyfestival.com