It's fifty years since the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album and its the Golden Jubilee of Bedford Park Festival
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Sir Peter Blake is to make a guest appearance on the Sunday of this year’s Green Days weekend, where he will make the draw for a signed print of his latest work – a ‘pop art’ collage of 55 entertainers who performed at the Empire Theatre in Chiswick. Anyone who can name at least 35 of the stars will be entered into the competition, which closes on Friday June 9th.
The image carries echoes of the iconic collage which Sir Peter created
for the cover of the Beatles' Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts
Club Band album, which came out 50 years ago, in June 1967 – the month when the first Bedford Park Festival took place. Sir Peter created
the Empire Theatre image for the Chiswick Timeline mural outside Turnham
Green tube station, where historic maps showing the development of Chiswick
will be interspersed with works of art depicting local landmarks. You
can see more and enter the competition here:
Sir Peter will make the draw and present the prize at 3.15pm on Sunday 11 June on the bandstand at the annual Green Days Fete and Craft Fair, opposite Turnham Green station. Abundance London, which is creating the Chiswick Timeline, will be selling other memorabilia at its stand on the Green, alongside charities and other local organisations, such as the Bedford Park Society.
The Festival
is being opened Saturday 10 June, by TV and radio presenter
Maggie Philbin, who was awarded an OBE earlier this year for her work
encouraging young people to take an interest in science and technology.
The former Tomorrow’s World presenter, who lives in Chiswick, now
runs a company called TeenTech. She will judge the children's fancy dress
competition on the theme ‘The Next 50 Years’, as part of the
Festival’s Golden Jubilee celebrations.
The fancy dress parade will take place at 11am on the
Saturday, opposite Turnham Green tube station and St Michael & All
Angels Church, which organises the Festival. It is sponsored by the clothing
and books shop Trotters, where children can also pick up entry forms for
the Turnham Green Terrace Treasure Hunt in the week leading up to the
fortnight-long arts and community Festival.
This year’s Treasure Hunt includes several ‘augmented reality’ surprises for children, created by a Chiswick technology company called AugmentifyIt. Its co-founder Ahrani Logan, a former Tomorrow’s World producer, will also have a stall on the Green and will be demonstrating their new app, which is aimed at encouraging children to enjoy science and technology.
The Green Days Fete & Craft Fair attracts thousands of people each year, with its children’s corner, 5-a-side football, music performances, funfair, refreshments, beer tent, Win-A-Meal, High Roller Tombola, books, bric-a-brac, cakes and other stalls. It runs from 11am to 6pm on Saturday June 10th and from 11.30am to 5.30pm on Sunday June 11th 2017.
The Bedford Park Festival is run by St Michael & All Angels Church, with the active support of dozens of local people and businesses. The first Festival took place in 1967 to foster a sense of community, celebrate the arts, and raise money for repairs to the Church. Since then it has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for charities.
This year the Festival will raise money for: Msaada which helps restore dignity to the forgotten victims of the Rwandan genocide; The Upper Room who feed and support the community in need in West London; The Amber Trust, which enables blind children to fulfil their musical potential; and repairs to St Michael & All Angels Church.
Events marking the Golden Jubilee include The Exhibition That Saved Bedford Park, showing how the first Festival in 1967 led to the listing of 356 houses in the area, saving them from the threat of demolition. There will also be a Golden Jubilee Garden Party, with toasts to those who created Bedford Park, as the world’s first garden suburb, and those who helped save it in the 1960s, including the founders of the Bedford Park Society. The actor John Rowe, who lives locally, will read an extract from the biography of John Betjeman, which describes how it happened.
Several perennial Festival favourites are also celebrating anniversaries – 50 years of the Bedford Park Walk, 30 years of the Bedford Park Summer Exhibition, which showcases more than 100 works by local artists; and 35 years of the Bedford Park Open Gardens. Other popular events include the Artists at Home weekend, in which over 50 local artists and craftworkers display their works; the Photographic Exhibition and Competition; and the Festival Mass on the final Sunday morning.
Tickets are now on sale, and the full programme is available.
June 7, 2017
