Lewisham People's Festival

Last Saturday was dry, mainly sunny and just the right temperature for getting out and about. It was ideal weather for the annual Lewisham People's Day - a free day-long festival with several performance stages for dance troupes, acoustic and amplified musicians and so on. There was a small funfair, plant, craft, cake and clothing stalls and lots and lots of worthy community organisations keen to pitch their stories to interested locals. 


I liked the fact that as well as outreach orgnisations there were education establishments highlighting the offerings for continuing and return to education. With all the recent talk of excluding people from education due to very high tuition fees, plus the fact that it can be hard to find out about opportunities that are available, it was great to see several such organisations represented. 


Another fun element was the presence of 'bobbies on the beat' in uniforms from Peel's day onwards. Vintage police cars were also on show and I was intrigued to come across references to a police vehicles museum that was formerly in Catford - from the photos displayed it looked very much as though they had been at the old Ladywell Police Station. I will look into this. 

My friend Julieta from Knitshop on Lee High Road was holding knitting sessions at The Big Top. Entertainment going on behind her there including a public singalong in the vein of Glee and demonstrations of swing dancing. Across the other side of Mountsfield Park was a dedicated dance stage where, inevitably, teenage girls performed the routine from Katy Perry's California Girls and more energetic groups performed acrobatic dances. 

There was a curious chidren's tent with decorations made from recycled plastic bottles - a great idea, though the sharp ends of the colourful plastic flowers worried me a bit. A crazy bikes arena saw a successive of people take a turn on a revolving, six-handed cycle that moved in mysterious ways, much like a pedal-powered ouija board. I used the Kodak Playsport camcorder I was reviewing to take a quick video of this in action. 


There's also a video of the final song played by indie band The Cleaners (myspace link). We didn't stay until the evening, when the star act was Neville from The Specials and Fun Boy Three.