Final update from John for anyone wanting to join him for final stage of the walk on Thursday:
“We should be at the village of Netherseal [just off the A444] about 3pm and will take the footpath north of Grange Wood, past Park Farm to Coton-in-the-Elms. Then on through Raddle Farm Wood and into Catton Park.
This is roughly 8 miles.
Meet you There. JJ”
The second day of the walk to the Big Session will leave the Market Square in Market Bosworth at 9.30 Thursday morning. Boff from Chumbawamba and Tim from the Reluctant Ramblers will be joining John for this part of the walk.
Parking is available for walkers in the festival car park. The site itself and camping will open at 9am Friday morning.
John has just heard that Boff (from Chumbawamba) and Tim (from the Reluctant Ramblers) will join him for the second day of the walk to CattonHall which starts at Market Bosworth.
More info on the walk page
John Jones, singer with multi-award-winning, folk-rock giants Oysterband, walks off stage and out into some of the most glorious landscape in England. With a rucksack, fellow musicians, fans and friends he follows the ancient Ridgeway from Oxfordshire into Wiltshire, taking in White Horses, stone-circles and monuments to a different age, stopping each evening to be reconnected to their instruments and play a full gig to round off the day. Exhilarating walking by day and fun gigs at night…join him for a short walk, say hello over a pint at lunchtime or evening, or just come for the gig. Once up on The Ridgeway the walking is easy under foot and the views tremendous.. a chance for a really unique shared experience. John will be debuting new songs especially written for the occasion.
Are you joining John to walk to the Big Session and need to park a car at the Catton Hall site so it’s there when you arrive?
The festival organisers have said that walkers can leave cars in the BS car park on the Wednesday and Thursday. All the setup crew will be there so there will be plenty of other vehicles parked there. However, there will be no overnight security and parking is at your own risk.
The Big Session signage will be up by the Wednesday so when you arrive at Catton Hall just follow the signs and they take you into the car park.
A team of pensioners learned to abseil so they could scrub their local landmark in time for our visit*. Members of the Rotary Club in Westbury, Wiltshire, whose average age is 72, strapped themselves into harnesses and descended off the steep hill above the town to clean the famous white horse. See here for the full story.
(The line of white buildings visible at the top left of the photo is the Village Pump Folk Festival site, where John Jones and the Reluctant Ramblers will be playing on Saturday 21st July, and Oysterband on Sunday 22nd).
* Officially the clean-up was in honour of the Diamond Jubilee. But we know it’s really for us….
Those of you who were at the Ragged Kingdom concert at the Union Chapel will have seen that we now have a flyer for the White Horses walking tour. You can view it by clicking here.
Have you come along for any of John’s previous walking tours? What was it like? Do you have any advice for people thinking of joining us for any part of this year’s walk?
Tim Cotterell, a stalwart member of the Reluctant Ramblers who has been involved in the walking tours from the early days, has a new album out, “Gathered” with Nick Burbridge:
http://www.burbridgearts.org/music/gathered.html.
John Jones says: “Intense lyrics, delivered with real passion and beautifully played.”
Available for download here: http://gathered.bandcamp.com/.
Highly recommended!
Welcome to all ramblers and music lovers. We’ll be adding more information here as plans develop, and John will be blogging during the tour itself. Please feel free to leave your own comments, ideas and suggestions!
John Jones and the Reluctant Ramblers 