Maldon Folk Festival

[Stephen Whiteside]

Just got back from Maldon Folk Festival. Another great weekend. I've been attending every year since 2003, but I'm only a new kid on the block. The festival started in 1974!

It is essentially a music festival, but they have always been supportive of the spoken word, and there are Poets' Breakfasts on the Saturday, Sunday and Monday mornings. There is a Yarn Event on the Saturday afternoon. There used to also be another poetry show on the Sunday afternoon, but that is in a bit of a state of flux at the moment. Basically, the venue closed down, and a suitable alternative has not yet been discovered.

Highlight for me this year was probably meeting Neil Murray, a songwriter I've always been very curious about. He was a member of the Warumpi Band back in the 80s and wrote, among other things, 'My Island Home' - first for the Warumpi's lead singer, George Burarrwanga, and then Christine Anu. Neil has also recorded a spoken word album ("Warning - this album contains no music") and writes a fair bit of poetry, from what I can gather. He read some of it at the Sunday breakfast. It's not rhyming, but it's top stuff - tight, gritty, heartfelt, honest. It's one of the amazing things about a festival like this that songwriter royalty like Murray can happily muck in with a bunch of poets.

Speaking of the festival itself, it appears to be going through hard times, which is a real shame. Crowds were well down last year - in part due to very poor weather - and were being very closely watched this year. I don't know yet what the verdict was. I guess it's a very much more competitive environment these days than it was back in 1974.

I am very aware that the poets are aging, and I don't think we get as many as we used to. That said, the situation is far from critical, and poetry/yarn spinning is only a very small part of the festival anyway. Still, it is a concern to see very few poets steaming up in the wake of those who are leaving. Another decade on and poets could be starting to become a bit thin on the ground. Then again, a lot can happen in ten years.

More to the point, this year's festival was great, once again. I sometimes go into these festivals in a rather jaded and cynical frame of mind, but they always seem to turn me around. I guess that's why we have them!