The sun shone, the sweet music wafted its sounds across the bay, the poets declaimed their joy and their agony, the beautiful flags fluttered, as round Cullercoats harbour the week-end long, the crowds drifted from one literary event to the other, accompanied into each by Christine Goodwin's haunting Northumbrian pipes.
In three different workshops, people drew bizarre monsters, sang their heads off, evoked forgotten memories on a blank pages. People drank festival beer, danced late night at the club, went to the moon in a play. All Cullercoats venues opened their doors and the fourth IRON festival, just like its three predecessors, somehow brought a small shaft of light into the present-day gloom.
Thank you musicians, writers, singers, audience, volunteers, thank you RNI, Fishermen's Mission, Crescent Club, St.George's Church, Cullercoats Coffee, The Community Centre, Bike & Kayak Centre, In The Bay, Cullercoats Brewery.
Thank you the seagulls, the rocks, the ever restless tides, the smell of chips and ice-cream, the high art, the low art and the art in between.
Thank you to our wonderful musical fringe for our very own Glastonbury, and to Inpress for their literary quiz which exposed our ignorance.
Onwards!
LAUNCHES
Among the fifteen events, two celebrated new IRON Press publications. and each drew a big audience.
Eighty people crammed into the RNLI to hear five Cullercoats writers proclaim from their new book This Cullercoats, which embraces six highly different literary responses to living in the village.
The long-awaited reprint of Elaine Whitesides' The Bairn - a Cullercoats Childhood drew an even bigger audience at The Crescent Club. And her memoir writing workshop sold out.
