festival

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Children’s parade

giant peachWith the generous financial support from The Heptonstall Junior and Infant School and the Friends and Parents of Heptonstall we had £200 sponsorship to spend on materials for the children’s parade on Festival Day.
 We will be meeting at 10.30 am in Weavers Square and parading from 11 am headed up by the Heptonstall Pantomime Group and Drum Machine.
 Jacky Kelly, from the Heptonstall Village Team will be knocking on doors along the route and seeing if some of our older generations would like a ring side seat as the parade passes through.
 The Heptonstall Out of School Club have also lent their support to the event, by making a large Giant Peach to carry aloft on the day.
 As a final touch, some of the kids will be carrying platters of peaches to offer to our special ‘roadside guests’ as the parade passes by.
 (We have limited edition, balloons on sale on the route for £1.00 each (sponsored by Arty party of Todmorden) and this money will help us to cover the cost of activities at the bowling club
The programme that is running at the bowling club is targeted at families or our older folks.
 It is an area to take the kids for a sit down and  value ALL YOU CAN EAT Tapas, or sandwich platter lunch. Or a quicker cake and sarnie.
 There are lots of free activities where the youngest and oldest amongst us can join in.

 

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Cuddly prizes at the ready

teddy festival 1The first load of teddies are washed and drying ready for the Teddy Tombola in the Bowling Club on Festival day! Come along with your ‘Wonka Winks’ and have a go at winning one!!! Beth Hardman is selling £4 bags of Wonka Winks in the Heptonstall school playground in advance of the festival for the bargain price of £2.50. The Winks can be spent in the bowling club on Festival Day, to take away the problem of giving children money.

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Gospel choir at St Thomas Church

Presenting!!!!

The 3 valleys gospel choir

Allow us to take you through a journey of soulful heartfelt songs from traditional to pop!

At St Thomas The Apostle Church, Heptonstall, Saturday 19 July at 7.30pm

Tickets £7.50 or £5 concessions. Pay on the door. For more info call Dawn: 01422 843856

http://www.3valleysgospelchoir.

The event is to raise funds for Heptonstall Festival . Other planned events include:

A Jazz brunch – a late lazy brunch to ease your way into a relaxing day – Saturday / Sunday in August – exact date tbc.

Pre-festival disco – Heptonstall Bowling Club – Saturday 6 September – from 8pm

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Heptonstall Festival in Pictures

red queen 1Were you caught on camera? Check out the beautiful pictures taken by Rory Prior on Flickr, with more pictures of the procession and children’s events in the ruins by Amy Binns.

All Amy’s pictures are free to download, print and share for personal and non-commercial use.

If you took some pictures of the day, why not add them to the Flickr Heptonstall pool and share them with us all?

procession 1

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Heptonstall Festival on Film

If you’re already missing the festival, relive the fun in these videos.

Hebden Bridge Times’ video includes an impressive performance from Heptonstall’s Class Four. Gremlins are preventing us from displaying it here but you can see it on their website. Full coverage will be in next week’s paper.

Traditional dancing from the Hill Millies, complete with scarves and pinnies, can be seen here:

Luke Concannon performs Give It All from his new album in Weavers Square:

And who could forget headliners Nizlopi performing here

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Who are Nizlopi?

Nizlopi“Political, intense, angular, and beautiful” according to Colin Murray, BBC Radio 1.

“The real thing” according to the Guardian.

But who are our Festival headliners?

Festival organiser Matt explains what Heptonstall can expect:

“They are John Parker and Luke Concannon, a duo whom when you close your eyes, sound like a four piece, folk hip-hop band, on Devine fire.

“They are most widely known, for being the underground, independent act, that topped the UK and Irish charts with ‘The JCB song’ in 2005. However they offer far more than this one song, having recorded two albums and four EP’s, this soulful, passionate, and articulate pair, go for broke with their writing and playing.

“It is skilled, sonorous, Double bass beat box, acoustic roots rap and they have long had a fierce reputation for inspiring, moving live shows.

Having been doing their own things for the past 4 years, they have come back together to enjoy playing for folk this Summer and Autumn with some new songs, including Material from Luke’s new album ‘Give It all’.

“They play, joyful, honest, atavistic heavenly folk stories; from heart cracked open Love songs, to their people power invocation ‘England Uprise!’ John Martyn and Danny Thompson, meet The Roots, meet Ani Di Franco.”

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Donations still welcome

Heptonstall Festival organisers hope local people will continue to support fundraising for next month’s festival.
Jan Lymer said they planned to distribute one more flyer, together with donation envelopes, in early September.
In the meantime, pink collecting boxes have been placed in both pubs, Towngate tea rooms and the post office.
She said: ‘Cheques should be made out to Heptonstall Festival. If anyone wants to donate now, they can give them to Tony in the post office.’