Bonfire Radicals, Dizraeli, FOS Brothers and Boo Hewerdine among strong line-up for Stainsby Festival

The festival, which has been in existence longer than Glastonbury, is gearing up for its 56th edition with crowd-pulling acts such as Dizraeli, FOS Brothers and Boo Hewerdine lined up to entertain during the weekend of July 19-21.

Festival chairman Tony Trafford said: “If I’m looking for my favourites I’d have to say that Bonfire Radicals blew me away the first time they were here in 2022 so I’m really pleased that we’ve got them back headlining the Friday night. Their music is utterly bonkers and insanely danceable – I’ll be up and dancing even at my age!

"Dizraeli on Saturday is another very welcome return. It’s only his third visit to Stainsby and we’re really, really pleased to have him back; his availability is fleeting. This will be a solo for our hip hop/folk/poet/rapper without his band The Small Gods, but I don’t think we could afford the full shebang these days. He’s gone stratospheric since we first had him here.

“One of most requested bands – FOS Brothers headline the Sunday night and bring the festival to a stonking close. I think we’ve had more enquiries about when they’re on than any I can remember in recent years.

"Steel Rhyme are first timers this year but then they’re a new duo (although one of the pair, Gary Hammond, has been several times before as part of the very popular Hut People). Along with Boo Hewerdine this is one of our strongest line-ups.”

Multiple workshops will range from pottery to concertina, permaculture to songwriting, comedy improv to poetry.

Stainsby Festival will kost a performance from poets in residence along the new Cultural Corridor aimed at boosting creativity in Ault Hucknall, Glapwell and Pleasley. There will be also be a gazebo where festival goers can get an instant haiku (Japanese poem) written for them on a typewriter.

The free Stainsby Flyer bus will be running to and from Chesterfield again. Tony said: ”Former volunteer drivers fell foul of DVLA over 70 regulations but thanks to Rhubarb Farm for the use of their minibus (as one charity to another) and to the Doe Lea Centre, where manager Rich Fearn is exercising his newly earned licence to be skipper of a minibus.”

Tony is overseeing his final festival as chairman – a role he took on 32 years ago. He said: “I’ve been chairman now for well more than half the festival’s life. I’ll be eighty in a couple of years’ time so it’s time to organise some succession.”

Justifiably proud of the festival’s achievements, Tony said: “We’ve survived the Covid years, we’ve won the Queens Award for Voluntary Service, we’ve managed to finally realise our Dream of Fields by buying them and now we have the funding to build a traditional oak frame base for ourselves. That seems to me to be the right time to hand on – and I’ll still be around to advise (and probably annoy) everyone."

Volunteers will build a barn on the festival’s greenfield site near Heath after this month’s weekend of music and merry-making bows out. The barn will be a base for the festival in future years and it is hoped that construction will be completed in time for the AGM and a celebratory event in the autumn.

*Festival tickets are available online at www.stainsbyfestival.org.uk