Country Life

For the past few years, the village music festival has happened behind our house. It is called "Music at the Crossroads", despite the fact that it is beyond the end of our cul-de-sac. This is a legacy from the years it spent in a field on the hill above the village, indeed beside a crossroads. Prior to that, it's origin was in a different meadow in the village, in association with the annual village fair; in those days of was called "Folk in the Field", but the name was changed because most of the music isn't actually folk (the last band tonight are an AC/DC tribute act!). It's not a commercial enterprise; it's run by volunteers backed by local business sponsorship, and all the profit goes to a range of local and national charities 

This year is the twenty fifth festival (gaps in the Covid years, of course) and it has long outlived the rural fair, which never restarted after foot and mouth. The mastermind throughout has been this man, Pete Watkins. Pete started his musical career in the pubs and miners' welfare halls in the valleys around his Port Talbot home. He is a fixture at village events, big and small, to the extent that I think he's taken somewhat for granted. He is irrepressibly upbeat, positive and enthusiastic. Many of the bands who perform at our festival perform free, on a reduced rate (or at all) because Pete has called in favours and exercised his archetypal Welsh rhetoric

One act did not turn up today - I can't remember if the circumstances were unforeseen or unavoidable. Pete filled the slot himself - just him and an acoustic guitar - playing half a dozen of so of his own compositions, along with interesting and enjoyable covers of Waterloo Sunset, Rocket Man, Pinball Wizard and - dedicated to those villagers who have departed life in the last couple of years - Wish You Were Here. He was joined for two more of his own songs by his daughter. She has performed before, but had not been on stage for some time, and obviously was unprepared, but carried it off in style, to the delight of her young children. Pete was visibly moved by the experience