In 1950 Robert Aickman, L.T.C. Rolt and others organised an Inland Waterways Association Festival of Boats and Arts at Market Harborough, Leicestershire. It was a great success and is now seen as launching the revival of the canals in Britain.
To mark the 75th anniversary of the event, the IWA are holding a commemorative Waterways Festival, ‘Harborough 75’, on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 June. It will be based at Foxton, with a cavalcade to Market Harborough, and will feature ‘historic and private boats, floating traders’, stalls and The Quorn Ukulele Orchestra (QUO).
The festival website has a piece about the 1950 event, which notes: ‘The Inland Waterways Association was formed in 1946, but it was not until the 1950 Festival of Boats and Arts, held in Market Harborough, that the campaign to save the inland waterways really became established as a national crusade. The festival is generally thought to be the tipping point of the waterways revival, triggering the mass-participation on a volunteering spirit which is still unique in the world.’
The roles of both Rolt and Aickman in the original festival are celebrated: ‘The inspiration for the event came from [the] very successful Vintage Sports Car Club rallies that had been organised by Tom Rolt, one of the founding members of the association . . . The rally developed from being merely a boat rally into a festival of boats and arts with a range of land-based attractions – exhibitions, films, theatre productions – a development inspired by Robert Aickman, the association’s co-founder.’
Their website also has a link to a short Pathé Newsreel of the event, full of period charm.
(Mark Valentine)
Picture: Tom Rolt steering his boat Cressy.
It sounds a great weekend out - I wish I could be there, but it's a long way from Inverness!
ReplyDeleteI think Elizabeth Jane Howard can be glimpsed in that newsreel.
ReplyDelete