Midsummer Marvels Badsworth Summer Fete 20th June
Report and Video Phil Barr
20th June, 2026
Walking along the main street of Badsworth, close to the attractive village church, then past the school buildings, a quintessential English summer scene opened up with colourful stalls and gazebos, ice creams, crafts and tombola spread out along the sides of the playing field and all this under blue skies and fluffy clouds with near perfect temperatures.
Our newly promoted Sound Engineer said he had been beavering away since dawn, setting up the equipment and this after rushing back from the Makerfield by – election where he had attempted to grab the limelight as Count Binface.
However, our leader for today, Dave Blackburn, rightly keeping to the script was only interested in ensuring that the sound quality was satisfactory and so a few bars of our opening number, Bad Moon Rising acted as a sound check and we were all ready to go. After a brief briefing when we were asked to approach each number as if it was still fresh to us, the opening riff was belted out and we were on our way with a string of such polished hits that were sound waves solid we could have seen our reflections in them. Sure enough, before long we had an appreciative gathering of people enthusiastically applauding the likes of I Recall a Gypsy Woman and Eight Days a Week, with Sue especially keen to get this Beatles favourite under way and Dave making the most of the generous support by extending the first set with another cracking performance of Love Potion Number Nine.
By now the sun was beating down and water was a necessity. Fortunately, we had brought our own supplies! (The heat, though more acceptable than the extreme weather that is seemingly just round the corner made me think back to when I was frogmarched round the Retail Outlet near York recently and spotting a shop called Sweaty Betty. We haven’t got anyone called Betty in our band but if we had she would have been sweaty today.) Meanwhile, casting a glance round the field, families were coming and going, enjoying the summery atmosphere along with what looked like classy fancy dress contestants in Alice and the Looking Glass costumes, featuring a very impressive Queen of Hearts and a Mad Hatter along with a Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit.
Back to the action and another Beatles song with Val and Mags leading us into Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, (nearly always a banker) and then Roy prominent in Elvis’s Return to Sender – equally successful – while initial reservations from some about tackling Roll Over Beethoven, a personal favourite of Dave’s, were largely dispelled with everyone giving their all to make it work. With time, seemingly now of an essence with a band dressed in black hovering close by, we decided to bring things to a close very appropriately, with Bring Me Sunshine. As it turned out the following act was performing on the school playground but it didn’t matter too much as we had done our bit. It only remained for Dave to decide on the most colourful outfit, the nod going deservedly to Mike Sidebottom with a yellow and blue combination, including a striking eagle design on his shirt although Stan’s own multi – coloured shirt was dazzling. It may be that Mike’s yellow trousers were the decisive factor. With Wallace and Gromit in mind you could say he had the right rather than the wrong trousers. I should also perhaps mention that Roy has made me his chief roadie/ mule train which of course is a great honour.
This was another successful gig with Dave’s conscientious and decisive leadership an important factor, together with a great contribution from what was a quite small number of band players available.
Next up and very soon indeed, for those involved is Thelma’s gig at Wakefield Hospice on Monday, starting at 2p.m. Hopefully someone there will record a video of Mags and Roy doing My Boy Lollipop!