I’m writing this on the Sunday night after a week in Bideford, a pretty little town in Devon. Overall it has been good fun. The campsite is lovely, being sited on the side of a hill overlooking the river at the Hallsannery Field Centre. The site was well appointed, having great features like a separate tap with a hosepipe on it to fill a motorhome’s tanks and another tap for flushing out cassette toilets. There was a tent on the site where late night sessions could be had, with lots of people joining in.

The downer really on the campsite is that it is just over a mile walk into town, not counting the walk from your tent, or the walk to the actual event site (and one of them is up a ski-slope like hill!). The buses will not stop near the site as it is on a bit of a dangerous corner on a fast road. But you have to cross this road to get on a very small piece of pavement which on the first few days was a bit overgrown, requiring you to walk into the road to pass. The bushes later on where trimmed by one of the campers. At places the pavement has an uncomfortable right-to-left camber and looks like it hasn’t been swept for a few years, as when I walked into town in sandals I had to stop every now and then to remove all the grit from my feet. This is the first year they have done camping here and may look at a shuttlebus or minibus service for next year.

As for artists, I’d say that was a bit variable. Some great and some, err, not so good. Again I saw The Devil’s Interval, only this time in a small room above a pub. As I was sitting only about 3m away from them, it was a great sound. To me the highlight of the evening was their final song in which children wrote the words during a workshop in Sidmouth last year, based on what I believe is a traditional song. As well as being funnier than the kids will know until they have grown up, the obvious enjoyment of the performers and the actions they carry out makes it a joy to watch and if anybody were to see that and not smile, they must be missing one part that distinguishes humans from beasts. Though with small venues there is a bit of a downer, and that comes from the sing-along chorus. It is annoying having to listen to somebody’s nasal out of tune droning almost as loud as the singers you have come to watch.

Saturday was a bit of a cock up though really. After wandering into town I went to a boat mooring on the quay to see some sea shanties and morris men, but it started to rain, so we went beneath the decks on the boat. There was lovely acoustics there though, and Hearts Of Oak who I saw at Dartmoor Folk Festival sounded great down there. I managed to take much more interesting shots of them as well in the subdued, contrasty light.

After this, I went off to one of the advertised music sessions, above a bar. Nobody there. Climbed the north face of the Eiger (or so it seemed) up to the other venue where there was supposed to be a session, The Joiner’s Arms. Only they said that everybody had gone down to the place I had just come from. Hmm. So I came back at that point, a bit disappointed.

The evening came and I got a lift into town with Terry & Tina, Terry being a musician I had met in the campsite big and we went for a meal at the Joiner’s, expecting there to be an session as advertised in the programme. There was no session, they had a band on. I then went to the marquee for the evening. Walked in, looked about and asked “where is the beer?”. There was no alcoholic drinks on sale, but I was told I could go to an off licence and bring something along. To my mind that’s a bit late to be told, there was nothing on the page in the programme about this and I was already lugging around my camera gear. The other event of the night was being held in a church hall and there was no beer there either. As I don’t dance and find relentless major chord music gets a bit dull, I didn’t go to the ceilidh and came back home.

Though it has to be said, in the end I probably had a better time than either of the concerts, for the large tent on the campsite was a brilliant evening’s entertainment, and was so for the three nights I went, Thursday to Saturday. A couple of people would be in there playing before 11.30, but after about this time, when the pubs had kicked out and people got home, it became busier, with people playing instruments, singing songs, joining in, learning tunes from each other and generally having a good time. Saturday night I didn’t go to bed until 4am, and I heard it went on till 5. Some of the performers from the festival who are camping played, most notably Emma & The Professor and most, if not all, of The Dambuskers and some of the young musicians from the FolkSprings concert. Plus plenty of other talented and quirky performers. I took a load of photos of these three nights in difficult circumstances (it was lit only by 3 light bulbs in the middle and most of the musicians tried to hide in the shadows). There are some lovely shots, much better than any music shot I took in Dartmoor with it’s flat red lighting.

Would I do it next year? Very probably. Even with the problems the £60 for a week’s camping, plus scheduled entertainment is pretty good value. The late night tent here really swings the deal, in fact one option would be to camp Friday till Sunday and just go to the tent on the site!

Another great thing about the campsite was it had bats. I like to see bats, I think they are lovely, amazing creatures. But on this site, something happened that I have not seen before. OK, I had seen a few bats flying about in the dusk, but what I was not prepared for was to be circled by them! For a few seconds I actually got a little worried, thinking I was about to be dive-bombed by a vampire bat that had been blown off course from south America, until I actually saw what was happening. The site had long grass and as you tramped about you would disturb insects, at which point the bat would swoop down and gobble it up, then resume circling again. Wow. I just stood still for a while watching the bat go round and round. By the time I had reached the tent, it had gone past me at least ten times. This happened on a few occasions. I wonder if I can make a bat roost to go on the back of my motorhome?