AS YOU read this we are at Coombes Farm, near Lancing in West Sussex, in the middle of our Jubilee celebrations! Yes, it’s great to finally be together again for our 25th Glastonwick beer, music, poetry and more beer Festival, delayed by two years due to Covid.

So how did it all begin? The story of Glastonwick is one of a simple, rather obvious but at the time pioneering idea, and this anniversary is a fitting opportunity to (briefly) tell it from the beginning…

In the mid ’90s I’d got fed up performing at great music festivals sponsored by the undrinkable corporate urine of Satan, and attending brilliant beer festivals where the “entertainment” consisted of a blues covers band with all the innovation and energy of a geriatric brontosaurus.

Over a few pints in the Evening Star in Brighton I presented cask ale activist and experienced cellar person Alex Hall with a vision of a festival combining great independent music (no covers) and great independent beer (no crap lager and no corporate national “real ale” brands).

He loved it and pledged his expertise. Our great friend Roy Chuter (RIP) did too. We were off.

We managed to convince the then rather, erm, conservative committee of the Barn Theatre in my native Southwick to have us (hence the name) and did our first festival there in May 1996.

We had to relocate to Shoreham Airport in 2003 and then finally to our lovely, long-term home at Coombes Farm in 2007. (The reasons for the moves are amusing and bizarre, but no need to dwell further on them — I’m so happy we were kicked out of our first two venues because it forced me to look for a new one and we found our perfect home!)

Big thanks to Farmers Jenny, Jerry, Trevor (RIP) and latterly Pamela, who despite early reservations (left wing punk rockers dressed in black, drinking beer flavoured with improbable substances and making a noise…) welcomed us and are now very much part of the Glastonwick family: they enjoy it at least as much as we do, and that is saying something.

This year we have 55 beers, all from small independent breweries, mostly new brews, including my favourites — a gorgeous one from nearby Adur Brewery flavoured with ridiculously hot chillies and several of my favourite ginger concoctions.

On the music front there’s the likes of The Men They Couldn’t Hang, TV Smith, iconoclastic spoken word artist Mark Thomas, heroic activist singer songwriter Joe Solo and the superb Jess Silk, who did a brilliant set at Bearded Theory last weekend in front of her biggest ever crowd.

And, informally, I have renamed a couple of the red ales “Red Worthing,” in honour of Labour taking control of Worthing council for the first time ever just five years after Beccy Cooper won our first seat for decades there, and “Southwick Red” – our new name for our home ward, Southwick Green, Tory for decades until my wife Robina won one seat last year and our friend Jude the other last month.

Like I say, a great Jubilee celebration.

As for the other one, here’s a poem.

TWO ARMS, TWO LEGS

When I was young my grandmother
Took me to see the Queen.
‘It’s going to be a special day.
Best thing you’ve ever seen.’
I stood there in a great big crowd
Who’d waited half the day.
Small woman in a big black car.
She waved. It drove away.

I didn’t understand why they
Were making all that fuss.
‘She lives a royal life’ said Nan.
‘Not for the likes of us’.
‘But Nan, she looks like you and me!’
She called me ‘a disgrace’.
And since that day my family knew
I’d never know my place!

Glastonwick Festival is at Coombes Farm, Church Farm, Lancing, BN15 0RS, June 3-5 2022. For ticketinformation visit https://www.wegottickets.com/f/12691.

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