Holy Trinity Church October 9th

Very enjoyable and very well organised. That was the overwhelming verdict of people attending the Saturday afternoon gathering of the village’s arty, crafty, musical folk. There was always music to listen to as you wandered around the stalls as musicians provided the live background music – no muzak here!

There were too many stalls, fifteen in all, to mention individually but Anne Kingham’s glass, Alice Smith’s paintings, Sue Barker’s crochet work and Barbara’s spinning wheel at Postapocaknits will give you a flavour of the variety of crafts on display. Some of the stalls were selling for charities directly, such as Neema Crafts with their colourful Tanzanian tote bags, whereas others like Stewart Pawley, selling his quirky paintings and the Barrow Poets, with their anthology of local verse, gave a percentage of the profits to Rainbows. Creativity and generosity intermingled – a great mix.

At 3.30pm the excellent guitarist James Martin kicked off the entertainment programme followed by the superb Carillion String Quartet. Then the youngsters came into their own. First the young singers taught by Lizzie Bywater-Florance followed by four individual musicians Kora, Bronwyn, Arella and Hana before the young dancers from Motion Dance Company took over and showed off a range of dance styles from ballet to modern. The audience was particularly taken by the dancing of Jacob, of the flashy green tie, and Laila and Hannah’s final graceful duet. (These two very talented girls both danced and sang together).

Performing inside the church must have presented problems for the dancers, as they hadn’t much space to display their skills, but the acoustics were wonderful for the singers and helped the audience too. Their enthusiastic applause resonated wonderfully! It was a most successful event. And there were cakes, lots of delicious homemade cakes, mustn’t forget the cakes…

Gaynor Barton