OXFORDSHIRE'S Towersey Festival will be celebrating its golden anniversary later this month with a special five-day event in its stunning rural setting near Thame.

From Thursday to Monday, August 21 to 25, the entertainment extravaganza embraces great music plus poetry, story-telling, theatre, dance, comedy, circus, visual arts, film and great food, real ale and cider. And among the musicians appearing at this 50th Towersey festival are world-class guitarist Richard Thompson, Mercury Prize winner Seth Lakeman, Eliza Carthy, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan, three-piece traditional folk musicians Lau who have four times been BBC Radio 2’s Best Folk Band, plus the Bootleg Beatles who headline the opening night spectacular.

Festival director Joe Heap, whose grandfather was one of the event’s founders, said: “We are hugely proud to be celebrating Towersey Festival’s golden anniversary.

“Towersey appeals to a very wide audience and is popular with all age groups. We attract at least 10,000 people each year — we are especially popular with campers and caravanners — and in the last decade we have raised over £250,000 for local charities, trusts and organisations.

“Plus there is much more to Towersey than the music, good though that always is! We’ve developed Towersey as a broader arts event and forged strong links with local organisations like Thame Arts and Literature Festival.

“There is art and sculpture on site from local artists, a big spoken word strand with poets and storytellers plus there are poetry and story writing workshops. Thame Film Club are programming various films, too.

Joe added: “Running in parallel there is the children’s festival with all its popular attractions and a real ale and cider festival with 20 different locally-sourced real ales and ciders plus a wide range of catering.

“We are like a giant village fair with massive family appeal. At Towersey, we are keen to attract people who wouldn’t necessarily attend other festivals, so we offer a range of ticket prices including the chance to just pay around £20 to see a single top performance by Richard Thompson or the Bootleg Beatles or Seth Lakeman. There’s also an £8 festival taster ticket which is bought at the gate and allows access to the main showground for the day.”

Legendary performer Thompson is equally enthusiastic about Towersey. He enjoys returning from his American home to perform at Fairport’s Cropredy Convention every few years.

So the chance to be at another open-air event in Oxfordshire is a bonus for him.

He said: “Each time when I come back to England to play, I enjoy it hugely. After all, Britain is where everything began for me all those years ago.”

Richard, 65, attributes his start in playing the guitar to the late Bert Weedon’s Play in a Day guitar book. “I had a battered old Spanish guitar as a young teenager and, thanks entirely to Bert’s book, I did learn to play in a day,” Richard laughed.

“My dad, who was a policeman at Scotland Yard, used to play guitar in a London dance band but, in truth, I never learned much from him. I went my own musical route. “Like so many of my generation, I’d been influenced by skiffle and early rock’n’roll and it helped that the guitar was a sexy thing to be seen playing back then.

“I joined various bands at school and we did R & B covers. We also tried to be like The Who. By the time I was 18, I was with Simon Nicol, Ashley Hutchings, Martin Lamble and Judy Dyble playing clubs and universities as Fairport Convention.

“Increasingly, I started writing songs and, in 1969, I wrote Genesis Hall. These days I am based in the USA and divide my time between writing, recording — often in Nashville — and touring.

“Getting back to the UK is something I always look forward to, so appearing in those Oxfordshire fields at Towersey will be a great pleasure.”

Joe’s grandfather was Denis Manners, who was a co-founder of the festival in 1965. He said: “My grandad was one of a small group of local music and dance enthusiasts who ran a folk club in the village.

“They wanted to raise funds to refurbish the Memorial Hall in Towersey and decided to run a little event in the barn at the Three Horseshoes pub. A few local musicians and dancers took part.

“It was a big success and from that year on my family were always involved. My dad, Steve Heap, took over in the 1970s and now that responsibility has passed to me.

“A lot of money has been raised over time. It is hard work running Towersey. But it is always worth it.

“Nothing makes me happier than a glorious, sunny day with a big, blue sky and watching thousands of people enjoying our big showground at the hub of Towersey Festival. Nothing ever beats that!”

For more information, visit www.towerseyfestival.com