Month: January 2021

Wickerman Festival 1

There was gang of four of us (John and Tony Dewhurst, Uncle George and me) who attended every one of the 14 Wickerman Festivals. The festival took place in the third weekend of July and the first one took place in 2002. The first couple of years coincided with the British Open golf tournament and that first year we stayed in a B&B in Kirkcudbright.

The site itself was situated off a very quiet country road on farmland midpoint between Kirkcudbright and Dalbeattie, located just after passing through Dundrennan.

At about 5pm on the Friday we landed at a cold and rainy site. Not unusually for us, we headed straight to the beer tent and based on the remarkably attentive reaction from all staff I still contend we were one of the first to purchase a libation in the Festival’s history, the drink obviously being a cold frothy Tennants!

There cannot have been more than 1000 people in attendance, and it did so well to survive those first couple of years as it sure it must have been operating at a loss. It was grey and windswept until the local legendary 10 strong pipe band, including Big Dougie and Wee Dougie, called the Dangleberries stepped on the main stage, the sky cleared, and the sun came out and the Wickerman festival was born. They also played a highly original bagpipe cover of ‘Paranoid’. From that day we have always said the Dangleberries saved Wickerman!

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The Dangleberries on stage. Image Credit dgwgo.com

As the festival was badged in the Ska/Punk category, there was a Scooter Tent located at the top of the hill which looked like a huge Mash tent. The DJ was playing some killer tunes within. There was a suite of cover bands on stage over the weekend, namely Combat Rock (Clash), Surfin Pinheads (Ramones) and Last Year’s Men (Stiff Little Fingers), the last two named were very good fun.

The support act on the Main Stage on Friday were UK Subs with their timeless frontman Charlie Harper. To embody the DIY ethic Charlie was spotted carrying a table over to the side of the stage to set up his merchandise stand. He was later spied nursing a bowl of lentil soup in the one and only food tent on the site. The band themselves crunched out a sparky set, with ‘Warhead’ being the highlight.

I was very excited prior to the headliners SLF playing as I thought it was a such a novel location to witness them. I had only seen them once previously on the comeback tour in 1987 and they met my expectations by producing a stellar set. To add to the merriment, it was the muddiest moshpit I have encountered, to the point where you could barely raise your feet out of the treacly morass!

Other bands we observed over the weekend were Dub Skelper, Misled Youth, Naeem, Druggy and Wilderbeast. The headliners on the Saturday were Spear of Destiny who I had misjudged beforehand as being primarily in the Goth space. However, they surprised me with a stronger more metallic sound and I thoroughly enjoyed their performance.

To mirror the film theme, there was a ritual at every festival at midnight on the Saturday to burn a huge wooden Wickerman. As we were in the Sassenach minority in the audience, we were joking we might be the human sacrifices, but thankfully that didn’t come to pass. It was a suitably warm combustible end to the weekend!

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The Burning of the Wickerman. Image Credit efestivals.

Pre Wickerman Festival

Beyond trips in my youth to places such as Edinburgh and Butlins in Ayr, my first trip to Scotland as an adult was an invite by the Dewhurst clan for the 1998 Hogmanay. The destination of choice was Kirkcudbright in South West Scotland, about a 3-hour drive from Preston. This started a regular chain of New Year visits over the next 10 years apart from one year out to attend a truly woeful party on Millennium Eve in Preston.

The digs on that first visit were out at Brighouse Bay which had a fine golf course and a terrific coastal walk where on a sunny day you could conceivably be facing the sea in the Mediterranean. I remember Tony Dewhurst who has some pyrotechnic tendencies setting off a firework one dark night called Big Ben which created a cacophonous sound and lit up the entirety of Kirkcudbright Bay.

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Brighouse Bay with a tee shot over the cliffs to the far left of the picture. Image Credit brighousebayholidaypark.co.uk.

For two of those years we stayed in a couple of large cottages overlooking the sea in Kippford. The location was a couple of miles down the road from Dalbeattie which had a good batch of bars and a decent Chinese restaurant called the Sea Horse (colloquially renamed by us as the Sea Devil!). On New Year’s Day the pubs were packed, and it became a tradition whilst on a pub crawl to watch the World Championship Darts that take place at that time of year.

I remember John and Tony telling the tale of a couple of years earlier watching local amateur side Dalbeattie Star playing in the Scottish FA Cup on literally an open pitch in the town. Later that evening they were stood next to the players in the Crown pub who were watching themselves on the highlights of the game on Sportscene!

A regular stop when we were travelling up was to a chippy in Annan where we devoured local Fish, Chips, Mushy Peas, Bread and Butter and a Pot of Tea or very occasionally Irn Bru (made from Girders!). There were some brutally cold winters up there with a couple of unnerving drives home and once getting the car stuck in the snow in a layby!

One New Year we ended up in a restaurant in Castle Douglas partaking in a 7-course meal finished off with the lead weight of local dessert Ecclefechan Tart. The Scottish dancing afterwards was a considerable challenge.

Continuing the food theme there was a fantastic small restaurant in Kirkcudbright called Kirkpatricks which served in my opinion Michelin Star fare and their Galloway Beef was outstanding. Tom the chef used to tell us colourful tales, especially of the errant footballer Craig Bellamy, as his previous role was the chef for the Wales football team. It remains one of our Top 5 meals. After the meal we would then watch the sardonic wit of Chewing the Fat, a TV parody show which unfortunately is only shown north of the border.  

 On New Year’s Eve 1998 we headed down to Arden House, on the fringes of town for a dinner dance. There was an old gunslinger band called Specific who hit the stage during the evening. To put it mildly it was an older clientele in attendance and an older lady toppled over when dancing and fractured her arm, it was an odd evening overall.

On some of the New Year’s Eve’s there was a piper playing at midnight at the Tollbooth in Kirkcudbright. The Tollbooth itself and some of the streets and houses are featured in the timeless 1970’s cult Wickerman movie featuring Edward Woodward.

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Wickerman movie flyer. Image Credit blogspot.com

When in residence there in 2001, John mentioned that a new local festival was being touted for the following summer and thus the Wickerman festival was created. It became a red-letter date for us for the next 14 years and thankfully no-one was foolish enough in that time to arrange a wedding or christening during the Wickerman weekend!