Flagging

I first became aware of the Festival flags a few years before we moved to Ashbourne. On one of our many journeys from the West Midlands to good walking territory in the Peak District, I remember seeing them and the bunting as we crawled through Ashbourne in the car. I thought at the time that they helped to give the town a lively, carnival atmosphere but I didn’t realise that they had anything to do with an arts festival. You need to get up close to them to work that one out. Neither did I give any thought at all to the people who put them up and, of course, I had absolutely no inkling that in a very few years time I would be one of the volunteers helping to erect them outside shops and businesses around the town. Who knows how these things work at a sub-conscious level, but maybe this impression of a cheerful town bedecked with flags and bunting influenced our decision to settle down here.

Everybody associated with the Festival knows that it always rains on the evening that we put the flags up, but this year somebody had the crafty idea of avoiding a nasty weather system by making a last minute decision to delay the job by 24 hours. Trying to wrong-foot fate is risky because, as Anita said in ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes’, fate just keeps on happening; but on this occasion it worked and we managed to dodge an absolute soaking.

The flags were attached to poles and carried to various points around the town by a team of volunteers, while another team climbed up the ladders and fixed them in place. The flag poles are quite heavy because they are re-cycled scaffolding, but this didn’t stop some cruel person suggesting that they needed to be even heavier to give the ladder climbers more of a work-out.

We soon finished and retired to Smith’s Tavern to restore our energy levels.

Choral Workshop

Everyone suddenly burst out singing
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom.

(Siegfried Sassoon, from ‘Everyone Sang’)

Singing. Can there be a better way to spend a summer’s day? The popularity of ‘The Choir’ TV series and the success of an NHS choir, which held the UK’s Christmas number one spot in 2015 (thanks, Justin Bieber), are evidence of the recent explosion of interest in amateur singing. 

On Saturday 25 June 2016 the Festival will be holding a choral workshop, hosted by Ashbourne’s Chameleon Choir. Information on how to book a place can be found on the Festival website.

Sue Tansey, the Chameleon Choir’s Choral Director, kindly gave a few minutes to answer some questions about the choir and workshop.

Robin: Where did the Chameleon Choir get its name?

Sue:     The name was first thought of by Ray Taylor who set up the choir. The concept was that as a chameleon has the ability to change its colour, the choir would sing a great variety of music from many genres.

Robin:  How long has the choir existed?

Sue:     The choir started in January 2011, with Ray as the Musical Director, but when two years ago Ray relocated to the north, I moved from singing soprano to the role of  M.D.  We have given numerous concerts in and around the Ashbourne area to raise money for local churches and charities.

On the Road

This Bank Holiday weekend saw the arrival of thousands of Festival programmes from the printer. Boxes of them were piled up at the bottom of the office stairs and I soon found that just staring at them sternly did not help to get them delivered. Fortunately the people that have been organising the Festival for years have a well-rehearsed routine to distribute the programmes to pubs, cafes, visitor information centres and caravan sites all over the southern part of the Peak District.

I grabbed my list of 29 drop-offs in the Ashbourne, Buxton and Bakewell areas, heaved a few boxes of programmes into the boot and spent a couple of hours on Friday evening delivering them to pubs, some of which were unknown to me — honestly! Seeing customers tucking into tasty-looking food as I handed over piles of programmes to landlords made me hungry, and I made a mental note to re-visit places such as  the Watts Russell Arms, the Druid Inn and the Miners’ Standard when I had more time.

A young volunteer gets to grips with the problem of programme distribution

The following morning I did a circuit of the caravan sites around Ashbourne and it was surprising to see how busy these were on a weekend when the forecast was not brilliant. They were positively buzzing with families setting off on bike rides, kids playing football and even younger kids charging around the well-equipped play areas. A sudden sleet shower sent everybody scurrying at Ashbourne Heights.

By Bank Holiday Monday I only had a few more deliveries in Bakewell but the place was absolutely rammed, with all car parks full by 11.30am. As I left it was pouring with rain as people patiently queued for parking spaces.