Published: Thursday, 1st May, 2008 08:00
The gift of festival beer
By David Cliffe
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IN THE past this column has featured a bottle of Butler’s “Mountain Wine,” and this week, we have a bottle of “Reading Festival Ale,” brewed and bottled at the Seven Bridges Brewery by Courage (Central) Ltd, and kindly given to me by a friend, unopened, together with a glass-bottomed tankard won as a prize on the shooting gallery at the Festival Fair, which was held on Christchurch Meadows.
This seems to have been the only occasion on which the fair was held here.
This, of course, was because the other open spaces were being used for other things.
The main festival site was on King’s Meadow, where there were flower shows, band concerts, rabbit shows, a folk festival, a traction engine rally, and much more.
Hill’s Meadow had Chipperfield’s Circus. Prospect Park had a jousting tournament, and Civil War re-enactments, and Forbury Gardens had a beer festival.
The gift led me to look out the programme. The Festival of Reading lasted from June 12 to July 10, 1971, and I must admit I had almost forgotten about it.
I had played a small part in putting together the entertainment called “1100 Plus” – an anthology of words and music telling the story of Reading, which took place in the large Town Hall (now The Concert Hall). It had been compiled by the then Deputy Borough Librarian, Jack Lee.
The significance of the quirky title was that the earliest surviving mention of Reading in history is in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 871.
In addition, 1971 was the 800th anniversary of the foundation of Reading Abbey, in 1171.
I also remember taking part in the play “Curtmantle,” by Christopher Fry, in St Laurence’s Church, under the direction of the redoubtable Rene Attwell.
The audience had difficulty in hearing the words – always a problem in this big church – and my main memory of the production was that the costumes were damp and musty when we got them, and pulling on your tights was rather unpleasant.
Perhaps the strangest event on the programme was an “Open Day with the Unified Family” at Row Lane Farmhouse, Dunsden.
In fact, the Unified Family were later known as “The Moonies.” One of them was occasionally seen among the books on religion in the old central library, hoping to invite someone to Dunsden!
Please let us have your reminiscences of The Festival of Reading: there’s a copy of the programme on the shelf at R/OC in the present central library.
The staff will show you where it is.
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