Amidst the mayhem furore and big headlines of this the 44th year and very quietly, on Friday night, history was made. In that I finally got to play the mighty Warwick Folk Festival. And a band I was in finally got mentioned somewhere on the advertising. Although it was a Fringe Event and not the Main Stage anywhere, it meant as much as Glastonbury to me. A bridge crossed. A scar healed.
Though this may be small cheese to those local acts who have somehow always made the billing there every year since the Boer War, this was a momentous event for me. Warwickshire after all is my home county. It says "Warwickshire" on my birth certificate. Since 1987 I have paid my Council Tax to Warwickshire. Despite the indignity of a Leicestershire Post Code which sends me all over THAT County for NHS treatment and for Jury Service, I live in a village that has been in Warwickshire since the 10th Century.
And performance-wise I've always done well in Warwick as a town. I've played there many times, in various bands or solo. Warwick Folk Club: Warwick Beer Festival: Warwick Words Festival and The Lord Leycester Hospital. The Warwick Arms, The Bowling Green and The Wild Boar. Outdoors, indoors and in pub gardens. The first album Black Parrot Seaside recorded was set down in Pathway Studios in London. But it was remixed in Monty Bird's studios in Warwick.
And there's more. My dad was billeted in Warwick during World War 2 and he helped keep order there during his role as a Military Policeman. It was lovely to see, on entering the venue on Friday, that it was the home of The Royal Warwickshire Regiment Association. A unit which both my Dad and Grandad served in during two World Wars. Both of them would undoubtedly have marched in formation through that part of Town. I like the castle, I like the Park and I like the town centre. Me and Warwick have always got along.
So although overlooked, and despite WFF regulars who kept assuring me not to worry about it, I did. I took it very personally. In the past I'd played ( in various bands) at Banbury, Bedworth and, Stratford Riverside Festivals. I've played the Godiva Festival, Earlsdon Festival, Folk On The Water and The Ragged Bear. I've played in Folk Festivals or Beer Festivals in Tamworth, Atherstone, Nuneaton, Rugby, Leamington, Astley Castle, Market Bosworth and many more. But never Warwick Folk Festival.
I'd been close, mind. In 2021 the band I was in at the time finally got a proper gig there. We had to sign agreements and everything. It was really going to happen. We were even featured on some of the promotional material. But one night shortly after completing the paperwork there was a big bust-up involving creative differences and some things said are still too personal and too painful to mention. My wife had cancer and was also recovering from Covid so I was very stressed and maybe could have handled things better. But the band imploded and the next morning I had to undergo the humiliation of contacting the Warwick organisers to apologise and to explain we would not now be able to appear.
Which is strange, very very strange, because a month or so later and under a different name but with exactly the same format minus one that same outfit, with the same line up but under a different name miraculously DID appear at Warwick Folk Festival and have done so every year since. They may even have done the same set list we were half-heartedly rehearsing on that fateful night. I wouldn't know. I haven't seen any of them since that day.
Thereafter until The Hawkesbury Trawlermen hove more visibly into view, there was little chance that I would ever get even a fringe spot. But we've been making a bit of a name for ourselves locally as the country's most landlocked Shanty Crew. Due to a late cancellation we actually managed to blag a Friday night spot in the centre of Warwick.
Despite having an aggregate age of somewhere near 600 years, we went down really well. Winning over a mixed crowd including a large group of lads and lasses who admitted afterwards that they had "only come in for a pint." They stayed there throughout however, clapping and cheering. They sang along to the end of our set. They also took the trouble to come up afterwards and tell us how much they had enjoyed it all. There were some regular Folkies in there too but the rest of the clientele seemed to like what we did also. A few extras outside heard all the noise and came in to listen. In fact, shiver me timbers and belay there but we think we might be going back to the same venue, blue striped matelot shirts and all-and this time probably well before the next Warwick Folk Festival.
So perhaps we need to make a film about it? We always say at the end of our gigs, "If you liked us we are The Hawkesbury Trawlermen. If you didn't, tell your friends you've seen Fishermen's Friends." Brad Pitt can play me and I see Johnny Depp as Webby. Watch this space.
