May 2008 Archives

Chester Folk Festival took place over the weekend at the Morris Dancer pub in Kelsall, where it has been based since 1979, four years after it was launched in 1975 in Chester Arts Centre (now the library).

Festival organiser Cheryl Hunt said: "This was at the invitation of Rusty Williams, a folk enthusiast and a dancer with Manley Morris Dancers, who had recently taken over the pub and renamed it from The Globe.
"The residents of Kelsall welcomed the festival warmly and have been doing so ever since."
She added: "The first festival held there is memorable for the excessive rainfall and is always referred to as 'the mud festival'.

"Conditions have improved somewhat since then and the organisers have developed various strategies for dealing with wet weather."
The festival was started by John Finnan, Mike Jenkins, Dave Boardman and Phil Stafford, who were all local folk enthusiasts and folk club organisers.
They were joined shortly after the move to Kelsall by John Evans and Barry Evans. This group ran it until 1990 when, mainly due to uncertainties about the availability of the site, the festival lapsed for two years and was restarted by the present organising group in 1993.

In the early days in Kelsall, the weekend events all took place on the main site - with the occasional singaround held in the upstairs room at the Oak (then known as the Royal Oak).
There were two marquees on the site - one for concerts and the other for dances; smaller events were held in an outbuilding adjacent to the pub, known as 'The Barn'.
This building is now part of the Morris Dancer restaurant and kitchen, but was once a very different room with a much more 'rustic' character. One of its notable features was a small balcony-style bar area, known as 'The Ashtray'.

Kelsall Community Centre and Kelsall Social Club were first used by the festival in 1994 and the events there are now an important part of the weekend activities, the community centre being the major dance venue and the social club having taken over from The Barn as the main venue for smaller events.
The Oak is still used, as is The Farmers Arms at the top of the hill, so the festival has now spread all round the village.

In 1975 a full weekend ticket cost £5.50. In 2008, the price is slightly higher at £50 for three full days and four evenings of top- quality live music. Cheryl said: "During all these many changes the Chester Folk Festival has remained a small, friendly, family event which strives to present music of the highest standard in a relaxed and informal manner.

"This year's festival took place, as always, over the spring bank holiday weekend and the organisers welcomed many friends old and new."

When rough sleepers began congregating around hot air vents in a car park in 1972 the council responded by installing water sprinklers that sprayed the area every 30 minutes.

A group of local people were so concerned by this treatment of the city's homeless people that they found a derelict house to act as a night shelter, and Chester Aid to the Homeless (CATH) was born. Thirty-six years later, the charity's 36 full-time staff and 28 volunteers now run two night hostels, a day centre, five move-on homes, an education centre and a medical room. All the facilities will be on view during its open day next Thursday, May 22, when visitors can find out more about the charity's past and present work and future aspirations.

The first CATH shelter was at 27 Cuppin Street - a house earmarked for demolition - and provided basic shelter for up to eight people a night until it was knocked down in 1985. The shelter was soon oversubscribed so the group took on a garage opposite known as 'The Crypt' and later another garage in Oulton Place. These were basic shelters where 12 men simply slept on the floor or - if they were lucky - on a camp bed, sometimes without a blanket. Another problem was feeding the men. A small electric heater let them toast bread during the night but there were no facilities during the day.

In 1982 churches came to their help and established an inter-denominational group to run a soup kitchen every lunchtime. Lavinia Whitfield, of Newton, was one of the first volunteers at the soup kitchen from 1982 until it was replaced by the Harold Tomlins Day Centre in 2001. Today she still volunteers at the centre kitchen along with other former soup kitchen volunteers Barbara Clegg, Veronica Long and Philomena Humphries.

She said: "I was a teacher and had never done any work like that before, I didn't know what was going to come through the door. Then these very ordinary people came in and a lot of them were very nice. and I got to know them, had a laugh and a joke with them.

"We used to open for a couple of hours in the middle of the day and provide as much soup as they wanted and plenty of bread.

"It was amazing how they kept themselves clean. We gave them clothes but it was most unsatisfactory because there was nowhere for them to wash before they put the new clothes on."

In 1985 the first long-stay hostel was opened at Roodee House, Grosvenor Street, and Oulton Place was replaced in 1995 by the Crispin House direct access hostel. Lavinia says the charity has evolved - just as its clients have changed.

"When we first started this we thought it was a short term thing, that we would get everybody off the street and they would be fine, but it just doesn't work out that way.
"Back then it used to be middle-aged men with alcohol problems, whereas now unfortunately it seems to be younger men and more women.
"It certainly can happen to anybody at all. I have seen a young man come in who I knew and I was shocked to see him. His business had fallen apart, he lost everything, but he was one of the successes who got himself back on his feet.

"The charity has grown a lot and become very professional now. Imagine if you were to find a rundown old garage and stick some men in it now. You have got to have your policies and procedures in place."
Chief executive of CATH, Robert Bisset, feels it is "a pity" that charities can no longer act as quickly and directly as CATH's founders.

He said: "CATH started with a group of volunteers who realised there was a problem and did all they could with the few resources they had.

"In today's society it would be impossible to develop an organisation in that way. Central government funding is only given for projects that are strategically relevant to their programmes.
"I can see all the merits of this but if it is 11.30pm and you can give a homeless guy a makeshift shelter for the night and a hot bowl of soup, it is better than him being on the streets."

Event to celebrate gymnast's life uncovers snapshots of the past

BUNBURY'S claim to gymnastic fame may not have started with Olympic champion Beth Tweddle.
Decades before, in 1949, well-known village resident Marjorie Rumsey competed for England in Sweden's Lingiad, a world gymnastics festival featuring 13,360 of the world's finest gymnasts. This is twice the number of gymnasts that had appeared at the 1948 Olympic Games in London.

She also competed, at the age of 33, in the National Festival of Youth and Sport at Wembley in 1948.
Miss Rumsey moved to Bunbury in the 1950s and lived in the village until her death last December at the age of 92.

This week her friends will gather to share stories of her and view the many artefacts she kept from throughout her life.

She kept boxes of memorabilia from the Swedish event, including tram tickets, rules for competitors, the programme and the costume she wore for the competition.

According to her nephew Graham, she had to pay for the costume herself.

Marjorie Rumsey was born on January 21, 1915 in Burton on Trent and trained to be a teacher, specialising in gymnastics, games and dance. She taught in Christleton, Nantwich and Crewe.

When she first settled in Bunbury, she lived at Ivy Cottage, close to the woods at Sadlers Wells. It was here that an interest in birds and photography flourished and Graham has discovered slides, cine film and photographs of wildlife and village life.

Miss Rumsey never married after her first love was killed in the Second World War.
She was always very active and enjoyed hockey, Scottish dancing, walking, rock-climbing and tennis.
After her retirement she joined the Bunbury Wednesday Club.

Graham is preparing to share his aunt's work with friends and neighbours at the Jubilee Playing Fields Pavilion in Bunbury on Thursday May 15.

The memorial party will take place from 2.30-4.30pm and later from 7.30-9.30pm will focus on the photographs and cine film that she took of the village and village events in the 1960s and 1970s.

A CELEBRATION of Chester's historical gardens, parks and green open spaces is being held during Cheshire Year of Gardens.

The exhibition, Chester's Parks and Gardens, at the city's History and Heritage Centre at St Michael's Church also features a photographic exhibition by David Heke entitled Human Spaces In Open Places.
The photographs are a study of Hoole allotments.

A showcase of the city's parks includes Grosvenor Park with its Victorian formal avenues, Westminster Park which was leased from the Duke of Westminster in the 1940s and Hoole's Alexandra Park, named after the Queen in 1911.

Visitors will recognise the city centre's Water Tower Gardens and Edgar's Field in Handbridge and notice the changes around the amphitheatre which used to be gardens.

The exhibition tells the history of the Roman Gardens which was created in 1949 as Chester's contribution to the Festival of Britain in 1951 and improved in 1997.

Private residences also form part of the exhibition. Hoole House, formerly situated on the corner of Hoole Road and Piper's Lane, had an important alpine rock garden, a camellia house and a geranium house.
A central lawn was surrounded by 27 circular flower beds.

A grotto is all that remains of the gardens at Hoole Bank House, which now houses the Hammond School.
Designed by the owner Mr Hayes, the space included a maze for his two sons. This was uprooted during the Second World War to make an American base camp and only the grotto survived.

Chester's Parks and Gardens featuring Human Spaces in Open Places by David Heke, is at the Chester History & Heritage Centre until May 25.