This year’s free replacement for the cancelled Cambridge Folk Festival attracted far more people than the council anticipated – as the extended queues to the beer and cider kiosk reflected!
It’s worth noting that the Cambridge Folk Festival will be back in 2026. I hope by then the wealthy sci-tech sector will have re-appraised its civic values and choose to stump up the sponsorship necessary to ensure things like The Big Weekend also return. Only I’m bored of moaning in blogposts.
Above – Hundreds gathered at the mobile lorry stage which lacked the power to reach those at the back
The event was well-reviewed in the Cambridge Independent by Mike Scialom (This will be in the paper version on Wednesday too). It was also streamed on Cambridge Radio – you can listen to who played what here.
It sort of went back to the first few festivals of the 1960s
Ken Woollard, co-founder of the festival was interviewed in 1974 about how the festival evolved.
“We had 1,200 people the first year – it was like a village fete” – Ken Woollard
Above – photos from Alex Elbro of Cambridge 105 – the children’s mosh pit early in the day (Hear Alex’s podcast with the young folk musicians who opened the event), and group folk dancing late in the day
If anything the event showed the huge potential the folk music scene still has in Cambridge. One of the things a properly-empowered municipal/unitary council would be able to put substantial funding towards is a programme of music learning for both children and adults – something that we used to have until the 1980s. It’s worth recalling Mayor Dinah Pounds’ vision for music and the arts in Cambridge.
Above – With Cllrs Anna Smith (Lab – Coleridge) and Mike Todd-Jones (Lab – Arbury)
I took off my sunglasses just before this was taken – I continue to be horrified at the telltale dark rings of chronic fatigue around my eyes!
…Which was why I couldn’t stay until the end.
Much as I wanted to go along to the Music in the Parks event the following day at the same place, such was the Post-Exertional-Malaise that I didn’t get out of the house at all – even thought the forecast rain that never arrived didn’t provide the greatest of incentives to overcome it. The fun of taking my [legal] e-bike, or e-powered pedal cycle (that cuts out when it gets to 15mph as the law requires) to a service awaits.
I’m reluctant to use the rental e-scooters because the firm responsible refuse to provide docking stations for them and the licensing authorities won’t compel them to install them.
Above – e-scooter chaos in Cambridge outside Lloyds Bank/Hobson Street, and by the railway station on Sat 02 Aug 2025
Chances are a seated e-scooter would work better for me than a standing one.
Above – a seated e-scooter limited to 15.5mph – at least it sort-of matches the Cambridge Blue colour scheme and is less visually intrusive than bridge orange!
Talking of moaning mentioned at the top, I’m toying with the idea of creating a series of video-shorts under the title: ‘TikTokTone’s Cambridge Moans!’ (A couple of people from my school days called me ‘Tone’) Short 30-second pieces in portrait mode, nothing serious, in a ‘see it, say it, send it’ …and then archive it so it gathers digital dust somewhere! (Alternatively, others may pick up on some of the things and lean into the consultations on overhauling the governance of the city and county which might lead to improvements? One for the optimists out there. Only I’m not feeling it!)
On long lost Cambridge building designs…
I put George P. Banyard’s unbuilt design for a new swimming stadium at Parkside from 1935 (WWII got in the way of it being built)
Above – from Mike Petty MBE/ the Cambridgeshire Collection
Although it got the red and white brickwork the wrong way around, I still quite like how it came out.
Above – George P Banyard’s unbuilt Cambridge Swimming Stadium of 1935 put through CGPTIA
In a way I think this would make for a half-decent starting point for a swimming pool at the Milton Road / Science Park junction serving King’s Hedges. AFter all, it would give the people of King’s Hedges a new iconic building for their part of town – a design embedded in local history. Now…if only we could locate Banyard’s papers!
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The Cambridge Town Owl 