Highbridge Podcast Episode 4-The Highbridge Festival

The Highbridge Podcast

Intro Jingle 0:10
You're listening to the Highbridge podcast celebrating the people, places and history of the Highbridge area in such small

Mell T 0:18
this season is funded by seed which is a consortium of community organizations in sedgemoor comprising of Bridgewater senior citizens forum Bridgewater Town Council, Community Council for Somerset homes in central Somerset film, and young Somerset, which is funded and supported by Arts Council England, creative people in places lottery funding, and the Arts Council. Once again, welcome along to another edition of the hybrid podcast. We'll be talking to Mary Lawrence, who's one of the secretaries at the Highbridge festival. If you're like me, you hear about the Highbridge festival. And maybe you've always wondered, what's it all about? So we'll be find out more from Mary Lawrence in this edition.

Joining me now is Mary Lawrence. Now, Mary Lawrence is one of the group that put together the Highbridge Festival, which I keep hearing about. So I need to find out more and I'm sure the listeners want to know, what is the Highbridge festival?

Mary 1:25
Well, the Highbridge festival is not the Glastonbury Festival. They've borrowed the word from us really, because we were here long before the Glastonbury Festival. It's an event where people of all ages, from tiny tots to oh 80 or 90 year old sometimes come to saying recite poems play instruments, act in a play. Do all manner of Performing Arts. Think of it as an equivalent to a Welsh eisteddfod. But with with more aspects, I suppose more areas of expertise. So it includes anything performance related, let's say it is competitive, although the music section is very much less so now. I'll say a bit more about that later on. But there is an adjudicator who comes.

When I used to take part as a child, the adjudicator was quite strict, and it was terribly formal. Whereas now, all the adjudicators are very kind, they will say very positive things and they'll give they will give marks, but much more they will praise you say how brave you are for getting on the stage. give you advice about what you did. There are certificates for everybody who takes part. And metals for most people in the Music Section. The dance don't quite get so many medals, because there are more people in the class but lots of medals and we usually give out stickers and sweets and things to the younger people as well. So it's it's really a lot of fun. Now, it used to be, I suppose more educational, more competitive, but now we provide a platform so that people can come and display their wares show off their talents. So you mentioned you used to enter yourself when you were younger. Well, everybody did.

It was quite, quite new. And I was young because I'm old now. All the schools used to get involved. I think I was entered first when I was four when I was first at school and I did a little recitation. But loads of us did. It wasn't we weren't anything special. All the schools used to send people to perform. They used to be school choirs. Individuals that music teachers used to send all their pupils. Everything used to happen. And the audiences were huge. They were full to capacity, I suppose friends and relations of the people who took part, but also the locals were all very supportive. And I expect in those days there was probably a little less entertainment generally than there is now so yes, it was always very, very well attended very popular.

Mell T 4:26
So why was it chosen to be in Highbridge, because Highbridge was so big and busy?

Mary 4:31
Well Highbridge was a real hub. Of course it had the the cattle market, and it was the best cattle market in the west country. People would come from all the counties around to come to Highbridge every Monday it was no good phoning a farmer on a Monday because they wouldn't be there. They would all be at the market. And we had quite a big town hall and the town hall was buzzing during the festival. And there were lots of banks and shops

and places to go and pubs, of course, loads of pubs for the farmers. And yeah, it was a real buzzing town, come up pick up on the actual capital market.

Mell T 5:13
What was it like? Did you you used to go?

Mary 5:16
oh, I would be there. I can't say every week because a lot of the time I'd be at school, but certainly, during the holidays, I'd come to the cattle cattle market with my dad. Very, very busy. If you would be walking along the A38. Even two or three miles away, you would hear animals baaing and mooing and braying. Because they'd all be in their, in their trailers and their cattle lorries on their way to Highbridge market. As a small child, I would only see lots of people's knees, I suppose. And I'd have to be lifted up and sat on the rails to watch the auctioneer and listen to the auctioneer doing his thing. And the smell I mean, you can imagine it was a real strong farm smell. And all the farmers smoked. Then when I went in later years, none of the farmers smoked. It was quite change really

Mell T 6:13
Taking us back to the festival. So how did it all come about? What was it was it a group of local musicians or artists or

Mary 6:22
Well, this is slightly before my time, not a huge a lot before my time, I have to say. It started in 1948 as the Highbridge festival. It was held at the town hall, as I mentioned just now. And it was just one afternoon of music. And gradually it developed and grew. were affiliated to a thing called Biff, which is British International Federation of Festivals, the patron of which is Her Majesty the Queen.And that evolved, Biff evolved from an association which emerged in the late 1800s.

People like Elgar and Holst, Adrienne bolt, people would have heard of Armstrong, Gibbs the composer, they all got together and decided there should be something where all these budding musicians could, could gather and, and do something in a big way. So that's how it all started. And then Biff developed and gradually got better known throughout the country. I suppose some of our more musical people in Highbridge got to know about it and formed the Highbridge festival. And we have the people that we have to judge, they are all kind of affiliated with this federation of festivals. So we have to have the proper people to do it. You know, we can't just get Joe Bloggs down the road saying well, that was a nice one, wasn't it? We must be one of the longest-running festivals I should think in the country.

Because we haven't had a gap at all since 1948, when it started, except last year, which was COVID. And that was really sad. Because there are people in the area who have been involved with it from the very beginning having taken part when they were little and gone on to enter pupils and children and grandchildren of their own. So I think they were terribly sad that we had to miss last year, but there was no way nobody did anything last year. So how did it all run?

Mell T 8:40
How did how did people enter? Or is there a sort of a sort of is there a process that they go through?

Mary 8:46
Yes, it's quite a complicated process let me try to explain what happens. We're all volunteers, all of us. We have a management committee. So there's a chair and a general secretary. And there's a secretary for each of the disciplines. So I'm the music secretary. We have a dance secretary, we have a drama secretary.

And we put together a program what we put together first of all, a syllabus, which we try to get out to everybody, everybody who could do anything. It's open to absolutely everybody. So we send it out to schools. Well, actually we email it out now with for the last few years we've gone ...