FEATURES

As this year’s biggest boat party sails over the horizon, midshipman Mike White checks the charts.

That was then…

Despite the corporate sponsorship and official blessing that Bristol Harbour Festival now enjoys, it all began as a protest. In the late 60s the council were scheming to fill in half the Floating Harbour and cover it with cars – an almighty Outer Circuit Road slicing down from Clifton to a huge roundabout near Coronation Road. The plan would have severed the dock with a road over the harbour at Jacob’s Wells. The historic boatyard where ss Great Britain now resides was to be destroyed. The building that now houses the Arnolfini? Razed to the ground, along with what’s now Bordeaux Quay, and even a line of Georgian houses in Queen Square. As ships got bigger, the shallow city centre docks became redundant as an industrial asset, and all that lovely water and heritage were just getting in the way of the extra traffic-jam space that town planners seem so infatuated with.

Then, David and Goliath-style, a small band of determined enthusiasts set about challenging the road-building frenzy and highlighting what a valuable resource the Harbourside was. David Blampied, now a twinkly-eyed senior citizen, was a catalyst for the action. Meetings were called and dubious consultations undertaken, but despite fierce local opposition, the council’s plans seemed unstoppable. The battle went all the way to the House of Lords, and eventually a select committee was set up. Challenging this was beyond the finances of the protestors, so instead of lobbing firebombs at cops or setting wheelie bins alight, David and his colleagues from the Inland Waterways Association joined forces with the Cabot Cruising Club to stage a ‘rally of boats’ to highlight the folly of the council’s plans.

David was at the frontline. “At that time the V-Shed (now Bordeaux Quay) was a stolen car pound. We were given permission to use it, so we swept it out, cleaned the toilets and it was ours for the weekend”’ A ‘Dunkirk spirit’ took over, and a flotilla of small craft headed down from the Midlands to join the armada of local boats, until 90 or more were crowded around St Augustine’s Reach (the bit of water between Arnolfini and the Watershed). Dozens of local organisations – youth groups, boat clubs and the like – set up stalls in the V-shed, and a crowd of 50,000 showed up in support. Thus the first Bristol Water Festival was born. It was packed – all those people crowded along the water’s edge without any safety barriers to stop them falling in. “It was pre-health and safety,” chuckles David, “and long before the pontoons were put in, so the boat crews had to scale up ladders like pirates to get onto the quayside.”

Despite a lack of infrastructure, the event was a huge success and gave the people of Bristol their first glimpse of the Floating Harbour bobbing with leisure craft. There was music and merriment. The harbour began to look like a place for fun or, as that first year’s programme had it, for “leisure and amenity”. The Water Festival was laid on again in ’72 and ’73, growing bigger each time. The threat of redevelopment still hung over the docks, but a 1971 amendments to the plans included a four-year time limit to carry out the proposed works, so the Bill lapsed. By the mid-70s, Fred Blampied and his associates had very visibly demonstrated the case for retaining the docks as a resource for the public to enjoy. They formed a venture group and raised the funds to save the cranes outside the M-Shed. “They’d been sold to a scrap merchant in Newport and were due to be torn down, but we saved the first two nearest to Penn Street, and that shamed the council into keeping the other two.” The ss Great Britain had returned home to the boatyard where she was built, the Water Festival evolved into the Harbour Regatta, and then the Harbour Festival we know and love today. Now those cranes Fred helped to save are a much-loved landmark, the centrepiece of many a festival since: fireworks have been shot from the roofs, circus girls have dangled from the booms, and by the time you read this they’ll have played their part in the M-Shed opening. too. The valiant efforts of Fred Blampied and those who worked with him have successfully demonstrated the Harbour’s potential, the whole of Bristol’s 1800s waterway network remains as it was first constructed – and we gained a great festival into the bargain.

This is now…

Forty years ago there were a few dozen stalls, a bit of music and a flotilla of little boats. This year – as well as all the boats, of course – the festival extends along two miles of waterside, with 11 music venues, a children’s area in Castle Park, a circus stage, a dance village, markets and films and theatre.

Centrepiece of the children’s zone is the Cirque Bijou stage, promising a gigantic pirate ship stage, swashbuckling swordplay and lusty pirates swinging from the rigging – plus world-class breakdancers, trapeze, acrobatics and a raucous re-imagining of Punch and Judy. Swing into the Art Tent to make your own badges, masks, and jewellery or spin your own painting on a cunningly converted art ‘trike’. Be part of a mass clay model-making project, build a green den with the kids, try hula hooping, defy gravity on the BMX track, conquer the climbing wall, learn to juggle and then flop down to be entertained by a whirl of family-friendly puppet and circus acts. Phew.

The Twinning Zone (also in Castle Park) this year celebrates the 10th anniversary of Bristol's links with Guangzhou in China. Alongside treats from Bristol’s other twin cities, you can sample a Bristolian take on Chinese street food and marvel at live performances inspired by Chinese culture.

Across Baldwin Street and a wiggle away is Queen Square – all leaf-dappled Georgian grandeur and grassiness. Once you’ve had your fill of fancy foods from the continental market and beer from the bar, swivel towards the Colston Hall Stage, with highlights including bhangra from Alaap (Fri, 7.20pm), afrobeat from Atongo Zimba (Sat, 6pm), reggae pensioner DJ Derek (Fri, 9.20pm) and Venue’s favourite bluesy-jazzer Lady Nade (Fri, 5.30pm). Elsewhere on the bill are rabble-rousing rhymeslinger Dizraeli (with his impeccable live band the Small Gods, Sat, 5pm), country-soul wonders Phantom Limb (Sun, 5pm) and bittersweet fado star Claudia Aurora (Sat, 4pm).

Head out of the square to Mud Dock for thrills including ‘The Iron Man’. Nope, not an endurance challenge for lycra-clad masochists, but an alfresco theatrical reworking of Ted Hughes fable about a misunderstood metal giant who arrives mysteriously in the night. The show’s being put on by a team of deaf and disabled performers, who’ll unfold the tale using integrated BSL, audio description and giant puppets (the Iron Man himself is as tall as a double-decker bus).

So, the main stage is in Queen Square – what’s happening in the Amphitheatre then? Let’s see now… well, there’s the Good Living Zone (not inspired by that sitcom with Richard Briers in it), with a West Country market and bar, a community garden and a ‘gert yurt’ in which skillsharing workshops and storytelling will occur. The Happy City Stage (not sponsored by Prozac) brings a truly remarkable line-up including (but far from limited to): micro Ceilidh (Sat, 3.40pm), a wind quintet playing Debussy (Sun, 11am), Anglo-African folk (Sun, 1pm), shadow puppetry (TBC) and Japanese experi-pop incorporating ping-pong balls* (Sun, 3pm). *This is actually really great – a super-inventive one-man band called Ichi, from Nagoya. Also be sure to catch spine-tingly folk princess Rozi Plain (Sun, 2pm) and foot-stomping seven-piece showband The Carny Villains (Sat, 4pm).

If all that sounds a bit too exciting, try the mellower mix of acoustica offered on the Cascade Steps stage, taking in jaunty Americana and dark alt country (Mireille Mathlener, Sat, 4.10pm), a 30-strong acapella choir (Gasworks Singers, Sun, 1.30pm) and smouldering folk from Venue’s Roots Artist of the Year 2010, Phil King (Sun, 3.30pm).

Like last year, Millennium Square will host the Dance Village, promising a line-up of local and national dance talent, from breakdance to Bollywood, ballet and ballroom. If you want to bust a few moves yourself, head over to the ‘dance participation stage’ and shake what ya mama gave ya.

The newly opened M-Shed will also be doing its best to impress – attractions include rides on the goodly steam tug Mayflower and a chance to imagine Bristol in the Blitz from inside an Anderson bomb shelter.

If the weather turns nasty (or even if it doesn’t), duck into Arnolfini for a free, thought-provoking reel of visual and audio treats, starting at noon each day. Enjoy an assortment of entertainment set to stimulate the senses, from an animated movie made by and for children to a hand painted film, two spectacular live acts (TBC) and ticketed dance performances in the evening.

Wobble down the cobbles of King Street to the Art Market on Welsh Back, pausing en route for two slices of outdoor theatre from Bristol Old Vic Young Company: a journey into the caves and classrooms of your imagination in ‘The Collector’, and an adaptation of Italo Calvino’s enduring tale of “love, loss and lunar milk” ‘The Distance of the Moon’, in which a disparate band of storytellers chart their unrequited desires as they journey with boats and ladders and song across the sea to the surface of the moon. Performance times are yet to be finalised as we go to press, but we do know they’ll be throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday and they’ll be free. Which is nice.

Although the main daytime stages will all fall silent at 7 o’clock each night, there will be buskers serenading you and outdoor film and theatre to enjoy as well as ticketed events at selected venues across the city. You could catch rubbery-faced funnyman Lee Evans at Colston Hall, a dance double-bill at the Tobacco Factory or a buccaneering outdoor production of ‘Treasure Island’ outside the Old Vic (see feature on p.16). For those missing the late-night music line-up of years gone by, The Bristol Harbour Festival Fringe extends across venues including Thekla, Louisiana, Grain Barge, Olive Shed and Mr Wolf’s, whose programmes (still being finalised as we go to press, alas) will run right through the night, meaning you can rock around the docks and around the clock.

BRISTOL HARBOUR FESTIVAL 29-31 JULY. FFI: WWW.BRISTOLHARBOURFESTIVAL.CO.UK

Water Week

• To celebrate the festival’s 40th birthday this year – and to remind anyone distracted by the sheer quantity of landlubberly fun that this is a harbour festival – the organisers have prepared an extra five days of dockside fun. Water Week run from Mon 25-Fri 29 July, bringing (deep breath) boat races, film screenings, sailing trials, sea shanties, folk music, workshops, wildlife tours, ferry trips and paper boat racing. Doffing a sou’wester to yesteryear, there’ll also be a rowing boat tug of war, as featured in the first ever festival back in ’71. Check the programme (a bargain at only £1) for full details – treats include a historic walking tour with history man Francis Greenacre, a ferry-boat safari with wildlife expert Ed Drewitt, a rare excursion up the New Cut, access to the Floating Harbour's engineering workshops and boat rides up the Avon Gorge. Other stuff not to miss: the Shanty Night on Thur 28, sailing lessons, the hankies and bells of Bristol Morris Men and nautical street theatre outside The Cottage, The Nova Scotia and the Pumphouse.

Make history

• Bristol’s history is your history, too. To help mark the Harbour Fest’s 40th anniversary, you’re invited to share your memories from the past four decades by uploading photos, stories and videos onto the official Facebook page. For those of you with printed photos (remember them?), you can pin them up on a memory board at the festival. The collage created and digital memorabilia added will be sent to the M-Shed to become part of the Bristol Harbour Festival archive.

FFI: WWW.BRISTOLHARBOURFESTIVAL.COM

WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/BRISTOLHARBOURFESIVAL

WWW.TWITTER.COM/BRISTOLHARBFEST

Copyright Mike White 2011