First Gainsborough Folk Festival
12 Noon Market Place
12:45 Eight Jolly Brewers (outside)
1:30 Market Place
2:45 Outside Trinity Arts Centre
(Timing approx. to coincide with the end of the Lincolnshire Heritage
concert)
Characters
Rag Fool Eamon Greene s
Recruiting Sergeant Geoff Convery s
The Lady Gordon Griffin s
The Horse Dave Hoy
Joe Straw Steve Hindley m
Flash Hatman Keith Brown
Beelzebub Dave Barlow s
The Doctor Geoff Miller s
Dame Jane Bob Schild
Besom Betty Geoff Turner s
On October 21st 2000 Gainsborough Folk club held the “First Ever Gainsborough Folk Festival” and, because of the Plough Jag’s long association with Gainsborough (we’ve been pestering, frightening and annoying the people there each year for longer than most of us, and probably most of the people of Gainsborough, want to remember) it seemed like a good idea to join in.
We couldn’t really start anywhere but the White Horse could we? So, having convinced the landlord that his calendar wasn’t three months slow, we got into the spirit of the thing with a quick run-through. A lot of us were driving home soon after the last show in the afternoon so the normal amount of alcohol was not consumed.
The first proper performance was in the Market Place. It seemed strange to do it sober but somehow we made it. As seems to be the case these days we didn’t draw a huge crowd but there was an attentive representation from the Festival audience many of whom seemed to appreciate the show.
We packed up and moved on to the next scheduled location. According to the list we were supposed to do the Jag outside the Eight Jolly Brewers before the morris men did their thing but, as the car park seemed to be awfully quiet and deserted, we decided that an unannounced performance in the folk club room upstairs would be more fun and more in the spirit of the thing. Being the sort of guys we are we didn’t interrupt anyone but there was a look of horror on a few faces when we finally burst in. The club room is pretty small at the best of times, there was quite a good turn-out and the ceiling is low enough to cause problems with the sword dance. The general consensus is that we think we’ve done it in a smaller space but we can’t quite remember where it was!
By now it was lunch time so; being “hungry as well as dry” we set off in search of a pub that did food. The Xtra fitted the bill and, finding that they start off the day as a café before the new regulations permit them to fulfil their proper function; we agreed that they should be the new start point for the real Jag in January. This gets us around all sorts of problems like the pubs not opening until 11:00, the lunch break being a disruptive influence to the day’s drinking, the pubs not opening until 11:00, people starting off a Saturday without time for breakfast, the pubs not opening until 11:00. Well you get the point.
Following our lunch break we returned to the Market Place and did it again, this time to a slightly larger audience, and then trekked over to the Trinity Centre for our final shot. This was to coincide with the end of the Lincolnshire Heritage Concert and the start of the Afternoon Concert.
Not a bad day out all told. Like most of the out-of-season events it seemed a bit strange to be Jagging in warmer weather and doing it in Gainsborough out of season made it seem even odder. Still, we got to see our mates and the fee paid for lunch and kept us in drinks. What more could we want? We probably won’t be part of the Festival again because it would be too much both for us and for the Festival organisers but not to have done the First Ever one after such a long association with the town would have been a terrible shame.
Report by Geoff Convery
Photos by Vicky D (Bob Schild’s partner)