It’s the moment that your tyres leave the road and your feet hit the grass. The moment that the flags and big-top tents fill the horizon, the sky opens up and your heart stills to a quiet, contented excitement. You are here. You are in The Field. Your festival family arrives and your temporary community builds itself around you. You are once again – and for the final time – in the place where music and stories will fill you: Towersey Festival.
For many in the extended Towersey Festival family, The Field has become the shorthand way of describing the story that is the festival – a tale told across 60 years in the fields of Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. This year, the festival’s final chapter was written as the event put on its glad rags for one last, glorious hurrah. Even as the book closes, the cherished memories therein convey why Towersey and events like it are essential parts of the festival community.
Towersey Festival began its life in 1965 as a gathering of friends, family, and performers getting together in a back garden. Its goal? To raise funds for new loos in the community centre of a small Oxfordshire village called Towersey. Over its 60 year lifespan, the festival’s stewardship has been very much a family affair (almost like Dynasty, but with ale instead of oil, songs instead of shoulder pads). It was originally brought to life by Denis Manners MBE and Louis Rushby, who ran it every year until passing the baton to Denis’ son-in-law Steve Heap in 1974. In 2019, the third generation took over by way of Denis’ grandchildren Joe Heap, Kathy Mowatt, and Mary Hodson.
Towersey programming grew out of that back garden and into something extraordinary, introducing generations of festival goers to art and culture from around the globe through a program stretching beyond mainstream offerings. Here you could hear Cajun music, watch traditional clog and sword dancing, and then learn the dance steps yourself from the self-same musicians who’d just performed it. Artists like The Unthanks, Bellowhead, Martin Carthy, Billy Bragg, and longtime Festival Patron Roy Bailey shared space with musicians from Brittainy, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Bulgaria, and several African nations. Entire programs for children and performance spaces like The Nest, where young musicians were supported in developing their own musical traditions, all filled stages with costumes and sounds that introduced a world that transcended the everyday.
Towersey Festival, photo courtesy of Towersey
Beyond music and dance, the festival long cultivated traditions within the Towersey community itself. There were workshops in willow lantern making, and Knit and Natter groups where those experienced in the dark art of yarn passed on their lore to acolytes keen to create crocheted wonders of their own. At this final Towersey Festival, you could try your hand at blacksmithing, wood carving, mediaeval dancing, archery or axe throwing, and even join a choir for the weekend! This was one of Towersey’s loveliest features – filling your day between performances by learning new skills and crafts, all while growing your circle amidst the thousands of attendees.
Like other festivals, Towersey had many moving parts, which it managed to keep in motion by building a community at its heart in a tribe of volunteer stewards. In exchange for a ticket, these vital Towersey faithful were members of the fondly named Towersey Wombles, tasked with the meticulous cleaning of the site; the Loo Crew, who ensured you may never be caught short of loo roll in a campsite; ticket checkers at the gates; and the teams working backstage helping performers. People came back to join the same stewarding teams year after year, growing their friendships and sinking deep roots into their temporary communities.