It's all over - but great memories ...

At the live music session last Friday afternoon at the Radway Inn, people suddenly started to leave and I asked the soprano sax player next to me in the circle of musicians whether he was going anywhere interesting.

"Wherever I am going, I am definitely not going to the 'Ceilidh in the Ford'!"

I was mystified and added

"Will there be many musicians there?"

"There will not be musicians there because there won't be any dancing in the Ceilidh in the Ford, even if the waters aren't too deep!"

He left and I gazed after him mystified.

The music that afternoon had consisted of mainly English folk tunes played by the gathered instrumentalists at this popular Radway Inn pub session which is a regular and important part of the Sidmouth International Folk Festival. I was keen to play some more so I next questioned a rather elegant tall flute player.

"There's a Ceilidh in the Ford," she explained, "but because of all sorts of stupid government regulations, we have to pretend that it doesn't exist. It's a long tradition that people dance in the waters at the ford at Sidmouth as part of the Festival."

"I am not going down there now," she said, "would you not like to come?"

I followed her down to the small river that runs through the small seaside town of Sidmouth in the English county of Devon and joined in with the other musicians that were not playing as the not dancers frolicked in sun filled waters for a number of joy filled square dances.

Here's a photo of the ford (taken later).




To be fair, the police who were present were all smiling and everybody had a good laugh when a man stood in the middle of the stream of water and announced that he was not there as the organiser and that if anybody was present they were there as private individuals and not as part of any organised festival event.

After not attending the 'Ceilidh at the Ford', I moved on to the Bedford Hotel where I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in a riot of wonderful Irish, English, Scottish and even Japanese and Thai tunes. People were packed in like sardines and the atmosphere was great and we only stopped for a short time when the torchlit procession of dancers paraded along the sea front and during the wonderful fireworks.

When I left for home at 1pm in the early hours of Saturday, the remaining players were still in full swing, having played for hours without any form of payment, just for their fun and for the fun of the many people who were listening.

There is probably a law against all this fun and happiness. But there are so many laws, it is impossible to keep track of them. This may be why I see ordinary decent people breaking laws daily. I also see people changing their lives for the worse because laws make certain activities impossible. The possible legal consequences of paying somebody to do something for you in the UK these days is absolutely terrifying, ranging from employment law to compulsory insurance and possible liability for negligence and goodness knows what else.

It is the greatest desire of every new Member of Parliament to initiate a new law with their name on it. They would do better to spend their time finding and promoting the abolition of laws than just adding to the legislative mess that just makes lawyers richer and adds nothing to the wealth of this country.

The Members of Parliament are doing the people in the United Kingdom a great disservice by piling law upon law onto the citizens of this country. There are better ways of organising a society than just making more and more laws.

In my experience, the chances of getting a written reply from my local Conservative Member of Parliament on any issue are about zero. I have tried many times with carefully argued and crafted letters on a whole range of issues which have taken a considerable amount of time to compose. In my opinion, he is treating me and the others to whom he probably also doesn't reply with contempt. We deserve better but because of the outdated voting system in the UK that makes his 'seat' one of the safest in the country, we are unlikely to get any more responsive representation in the near future.

It's time to have an alternative to the official government of this country. This alternative government should investigate ways of managing and organising our society to make it a better place without making more laws.

We could call it the not Parliament! And it would certainly not make any more laws!

Relate Topics:

Sidmouth
Sidmouth Folk
Sidmouth Folk Festival
Devon
flute
Radway Inn
Bedford Hotel
traditional English folk music
Thai
Japanese
Ceilidh
Member of Parliament
Members of Parliament
Parliament
Alternative Parliament