Tag: Neil Young

Kirkcudbright Wickerman Festival Fringe – Part 2

This week I complete the tale of the Kirkcudbright Wickerman Fringe event held in September 23.  Kirkcudbright Harbour Square is located in the centre of town and was built in 1911 when the old dock was filled in and the new quay created. Many fun fairs and festivities have taken place there and, on this occasion, an outdoor stage had been set up.

We could watch the proceedings from seats outside the newly revamped Steamies Bar, where their attempt to capture the ‘yoof’ crowd had been partially successful.  The first band up was Cherry Pinks from the nearby town of Dumfries whose sound revolves around singer/songwriter Julie Ward, they were followed by the local folk duo Wyrdy Women and also Rangatang.

Fringe facing Harbour Square stage with ‘Steamies’ in the background. Image Credit dailyrecord.co.uk

At that point, a group decision was made to have an intermission to walk over to St Mary’s Park to watch the town’s football team St Cuthbert Wanderers play Dalkeith Thistle in a preliminary round of the Scottish FA Cup.  As we passed through the quaint turnstiles, we were encouraged to enter the half time lottery draw to which we acquiesced and were invited to sample some sandwiches from a mini buffet in the ‘clubhouse’.

A bizarre incident occurred in the first half when a home defender caught the full force of the ball in his face and was out cold on the turf. After some medical action he stumbled to the touchline with us fully expecting him to be substituted. However, he remarkably and probably foolishly returned onto the pitch, with us concluding that they are obviously made of stern stuff in these parts!

At half time, we somewhat inevitably won the lottery draw with Uncle George having the golden ticket and we sheepishly and suffering a little from ‘imposter syndrome’ went up to collect our cash prize. Whilst there, we were tracking the PNE score which resulted in an away win at Stoke which astonishingly and unprecedently took us to the top of the league which put us all in fine spirits. We left the match before the end as the away team were heading towards their comfortable 5-0 win.

The ‘Main’ stand at St Mary’s Park. Image Credit flickr.com

We traversed down the river back to the Harbour Stage where we witnessed the Gang of Three from Perth. They actually had four members but were not the Gang of Four! They were a folk combo and were engaging and played three Neil Young covers which suited myself including closing the set with ‘Rocking in the Free World’.  

I remember a pal of mine Steve Berry who always used to skit me about my lifetime devotion to Neil Young. However, he then approached me one night in the Olde Black Bull pub in Preston town centre and outlined that the aforementioned song had caused him to have a ‘Road to Damascus’ conversion experience, better late than never I say!

After grabbing some tea, we headed onto our next destination at the Kirkcudbright Parish Hall. It was originally built alongside St Andrew’s and St Cuthbert’s church in 1843 and subsequently renovated in 2009. It was a long thin function room and was packed when we arrived, so we perched in a corner near the stage. The band playing was a noisy five piece rock band with a female lead called Shardlake who derive from Glasgow.

Shardlake on stage. Image Credit shardlakerock.com

We then trotted the short distance to Kirkcudbright Bowling Club to see Alan Bissett. Alan is an author, playwright and was also for a spell a creative writing lecturer at Leeds University. He has a musical background in that he collaborated with Malcolm Middleton writing the lyrics and performing spoken word on the Ballads of the Book project alongside Roddy Woomble. He has also undertaken spoken word support slots for the Vaccines and at the short lived but excellent Connect Music Festival in Inverary.

On the night, he was staging his one-man Edinburgh Fringe Moira Monologues set. This is based on stories and characters Alan engaged with growing up in the Hallglen area of Falkirk featuring her pal Babs and her wee dug Pepe. It was original and highly amusing and us English lads were hooting at the section where Moira was celebrating one of England’s many penalties defeats.   

On the Sunday three of the lads headed into Dumfries to watch the Celtic v Rangers old firm match whilst I headed home and was glad of Jez Catlow’s company on the long drive back. En route I treated Jez to the sonic soundtrack of the fabulous Sennen’s back catalogue.  

Preston Venues 45 to 46 – Withytrees

The Preston Withytrees Pub in Fulwood first appeared on the Withy Farmland around 1849 and was a thriving establishment when I first encountered it in the 1980’s, so much so it used to have its own taxi rank outside in those days for punters heading into town. I remember visiting in the late 1980’s prior to watching the Superbowl on a Sunday night and the place was packed to the rafters!

It was owned by the local Matthew Brown brewery, and it had two distinct rooms and I recall being in the vault area in 1985 watching the culmination of Live Aid before walking home to watch Neil Young appear on the Philadelphia leg of the shindig. They subsequently refurbished the pub into a large single open space room.  

It was within fifteen minutes walking distance of Preston North End via Moor Park, and I have watched a few World Cup matches and other sporting events there. PNE players used to periodically frequent and David Beckham whilst on a loan spell at the club was spotted there. The local boxer Tyson Fury when during one of his darker periods was also spied boozing in there one drizzly Tuesday afternoon.

Withytrees Pub in 1979 with Matthew Brown brewery signage with the edge of the taxi rank in bottom left. Image Credit Flickr.

Our last property in Preston before moving out to Manchester was in the Fulwood area and situated about 200 yards from the pub, and we lived there between 2006 to 2017. On our first night in the house, we visited the hostelry, and the place was thriving but about three years later the landlord and his staff departed, and the pub began its slow decline until it’s very sad final closure in 2019 and the last I heard is that the site is planned to be converted into a Muslim Girl’s school.

There was a chap who lived on the next street who we labelled ‘Mr 5 o clock’ as that was his daily arrival time for a pint or ten, he must surely have mourned its subsequent closure! On the night of the legal landmark of opening hours first being extended beyond 11pm we made a visit to raise a glass to that small piece of history.

Two streets away was the locally famous Hardcastle Road Chinese takeaway which I visited regularly; it is unusually situated between houses on a residential street but remains open to this day. On the other side of Garstang Road (A6) Checcos Italian restaurant opened its doors in 2009 and Gill and I had some fine meals there over the years. The restaurant and pub became advocates of each other until the restaurant suddenly closed its doors in 2017 without any warning.  

Very occasionally the pub used to have live bands and I saw a local acoustic singer called Daisy play there in 2011 and another local band with the quirky name of Hybrid Flower Monkeys perform there five years later.  

Withytrees Interior. Image Credit tripadvisor.co.uk

To the rear of the pub was the biggest beer garden in Preston which had been built on the bowling green that was originally located there. The only local beer garden I can think of to compare size wise would be the Red Lion at Withington. We spent many a sunny summers afternoon perched on the numerous benches located out in the garden.

In September 2016 they decided to utilise the Preston Withytrees Beer Garden space and hold what I am sure was the only ever occurrence of the Withyfest. It was an all-day charity event, and they were thankfully blessed with wall-to-wall sunshine. I could only attend a small portion of the festival, and I witnessed a band called Kathy and the Hornbeats play who featured my old school chum Mick Duffy as one of the guitarists.