Cumnor Festival of Performing Arts

Here's an account of the 2019 Festival.

Despite the extraordinarily unseasonable weather, a great time was had by all on 15th June at our third annual Cumnor Festival of Performing Arts, which was staged in the extensive and delightful gardens of Hurstcote in Appleton Road. An impressive number of local people braved the weather and turned out for this popular community event. Once again, our fantastically generous and hospitable hosts, Catherine and Ted, have already agreed that the festival can return again to Hurstcote next year, so please make a note of it in your diary for 20th June 2020.  In order to keep performers and visitors to the festival dry and cosy, we hired the most magnificent large red stretch tent, which looked very pleasing on the eye in the beautiful, tree backed setting, whilst helping us all to forget the deluge of rain and concentrate on the top rate performances from musicians, actors and story tellers of the best quality.  The  tent proved such a success that, in order to take the guess-work out of the increasingly unpredictable weather, in future years, we shall hire it again and, should the sun decide to grace us with its presence, it will equally well serve us as a highly attractive and efficient sun shield (we can live in hope!).

Apart from the festival’s role as a lovely family day full of fun, friendship, good food and entertainment, the event was held to raise money for our Cumnor based breast cancer support group – Positively Pink Oxford (www.positivelypinkoxford.org.uk . Although I had feared that, due to the necessary hiring of the marquee and the unpredictable showery weather conditions, we would do well to ‘break even’ in terms of money raised, the actual number of people attending were just twenty short of the previous year, so consequently, we raised just over £2,000!!! 

This money will be very effectively used to support local people (often young ladies with families) who have been visited by breast cancer and help them to regain confidence and live their lives fully. We also gave donations to Maggie’s Cancer Centre Oxford (whose staff recommend our group to patients) and Oxenford House our local residential care home.

A very wide range of music was delivered to include jazz/swing (from a wonderful 18 piece Glen Miller type band)… unfortunately, the band’s usual leader – Bob Cutting had been taken ill, but on the day the playing was very ably led by Al Ryan - the trumpeter and dulcet voiced presenter from BBC radio. There was a splendid mix of classical music through to popular from the lovely lady clarinettists – Pipeworks: Poppy Smallwood generously drove down from Manchester and totally captivated us with her wide range of songs/guitar/harmonica melodies (Poppy is an absolute star in the making who has promised to return later in the year to perform in our charity concert – watch this space!): There were other star performances from Anna Lockett, High Jinks, The Kirals, What Larks, Creaky Knee and the Cumnor Players wowed us all with their medley of three short, highly witty and unforgettable plays: Prolific, best selling author, Erica James came over from her home by the shores of Lake Como to be ‘in conversation’ with me, sign and sell some of her books in aid of Positively Pink Oxford. Erica gave us some often humorous and fascinating personal insights into the life of an author and tips on how to embark on the craft of writing: Jackie Holderness held the children spellbound with stories from her recent illustrated book, ‘The Princess Who Hid in a Tree’.

Our very impressive raffle prizes were so kindly and generously donated by local people too numerous to mention here by name, but just a few include: A luxury John Lewis hamper (Oxenford House and chief Marcus): Three course dinner for two (Bear and Ragged Staff):Twelve bottles of fine wine (Jayne and John Putt): Top quality champagne (Elaine Flint): £40 voucher towards dinner for two (The Vine): Signed/dedicated book ‘Swallowtail Summer’ (Erica James’ latest): £25 meat voucher (Michael Caine Butcher) - The list goes on and on…. A huge thank you to everyone who donated prizes... I am greatly touched by your generosity.

While on the subject of thanks, enormous outpourings of them must go in the direction of everyone who helped on the day – and there were many cheerfully and enthusiastically putting their hands to everything from making and serving tea, cakes and lunches, erecting tents, selling raffle tickets, moving large numbers of chairs and tables around the gardens, taking photographs, operating the sound system and generally looking after the details which made the event so welcoming, relaxing and enjoyable. My thanks also to Oxenford care home for providing most of the ticket sellers on the gate and some of the delicious cakes… to the Bear and Ragged Staff and our local new care home Chawley Grove for their contribution of scrumptious lunch time savouries… and very special thanks to the lovely staff of Chawley Grove who kept the very welcome alcoholic beverages flowing so beautifully all day.  Of course, we would not be able to hold the festival at all without the dedicated parking areas offered to us by the Cumnor Minors Football Club and John and Vivienne Kenwright… heartfelt thanks to everyone. 

It has been such a privilege again this year, to bring so many people of our wonderful community together for this event, at which we can relax, meet some old and new friends, share some fun and enjoyable entertainment together and, at least for the day, put aside some of the less pleasant aspects of our lives and the world we live in.  Such a day serves to strongly underline for me how fortunate we are to live in this great place and how, if we put our minds and our hearts to it, just how strong and beautiful we can be when we join hands! Well done Cumnor!