Festival History

The Plot...The plot for a folk festival at Port Fairy was hatched around
August 1977 in the Bush Inn hotel in Geelong by the small group who had
restarted the Geelong Folk Music Club in May 1977. With successful club
nights and bush dances - the unique 'Bullockies Balls' - there was just
enough money and plenty of blind faith to have a go. Jamie McKew suggested
looking at Port Fairy, his grandmothers home town, as it offered very good
venues and amenities and had a very traditional and historic atmosphere.
The flavour of folk music was more traditional Celtic and Australian. The
first festival was to be highlighted as presenting 'Irish and Australian'
music.

The first festival was in December 1977, second one in December 1978, third
one in December 1979 and the fourth in March 1980 continuing every March
since then opting for the long weekend and the usually more reliable
weather. Since 1977, just over 2000 acts and around 8000 artists have
appeared at the festival.

We asked co-founder Jamie McKew..."People often ask me why the festival is
at Port Fairy. One answer is the festival is because my grandmother lived
just near Port Fairy at Rosebrook. In fact my grandparents were once the
curators of the Port Fairy gardens. It is a part of my personal history. So
my mother came from Port Fairy and in fact went to school with Shane
Howards mother, still friends to this day. Each summer our growing family
went to holiday with the grandparents at Port Fairy and one way or another
I got to know the town and some of the people quite well.

Years later living in Geelong in 1977 I had restarted the Geelong Folk
Music Club. Our small organising group started thinking about beginning a
folk festival and I suggested Port Fairy as a venue. We were somewhat
inspired by a very enjoyable National Folk Festival held in Adelaide the
previous Easter. Around August on a trip down to visit my Nanna I visited
some possible venues and sites around town with the enthusiastic help of
John Brophy.

It soon became clear that the township was ideally suited to hold a small
music festival as it offered small halls, a community centre, historic
pubs, wonderful camping at the Gardens Caravan Park, and generally a
traditional atmosphere. Most importantly there were people such as John
Brophy with his merry helpers and over the years a great many more
community spirited people willing to get behind the Festival.

In the first few years the Port Fairy assistance principally came from the
Lions Club. The sites we chose were the small band rotunda at the gardens
for the main Sunday afternoon concert, for dances the Drill Hall ( formerly
the more romantically named Fairy Palace where my parents had their wedding
reception) and the Community Centre for the concert. For many years Pat
Glover did a great job organising dozens of keys and fees so we could
actually get into all the places. And the stories he could tell would fill
a library of books!

The poster was designed by Steven Thomas, the brother of Michael Thomas,
from Weddings Parties Anything, who had recently been in a bush band with
me called the Rybuck Bush Band. That poster design is the same one retained
today. The first poster was all green and the subtitle beneath the Port
Fairy Folk Festival stated Australian and Traditional music. This subtitle
was later dropped as the festival programming became more embracing.

In 1978 I had a successful band called Buckleys Bush Band and we played for
the Friday night dance in the Drill Hall. I remember a few tense moments at
the door when some local youths felt that we weren't welcome on their
territory but as the dancing and the fun ensued most of the young people
were also won over particularly by the second and third festivals.

Over the weekends we dragged my band's PA around from venue to venue and as
the people rolled in and Saturday and Sunday passed there was music
everywhere especially in the pubs where there were absolutely delightful
sessions held and with everyone having a great time it was very clear that
the Port Fairy festival really did have legs. The organising group for that
first year included Marie Goldsworthy, Ivan Milligan, Cliff Gilbert Purssey
and Fiona Longfield. More assistance came from Cliff's friends in the Folk
Song and Dance Society.

From then on the challenge was to keep it going and there were so many
things that needed improving. It took a few years to really get on top of
all the problems and logistics of launching a festival in a small town each
year. A particular problem was the need for building stages as the event
became bigger. The stages evolved from the band rotunda, to one truck tray,
to one transport, to two transports with covers built by Russell Clark and
his band of lads. Russell had a local building supplies business which we
plundered and he became mayor at an opportune time as the festival was
growing he helped enormously to open up venues and get the support of
council behind it.

It is no coincidence that Russell in 1992 became chairman of the body which
now runs the festival. He had been responsible for leading a long project
of infrastructure development in which a very large amount as been invested
to ensure smooth running of this huge event. This includes construction of
stages, undergound three phase power to main stages, water and sewage
mains, telephone communications, new storage sheds and equipment. Russell
had a passion and drive to continue quality improvements of the festival as
the major event in the town and district. The social and cultural benefits
seemed bountiful.

One critical turning point for the future of the festival was the move to
encompass the main venues in one arena; an essential move which solved huge
and overwhelming problems. Russell's crew grew to the entire Yambuk
Football Club complete with the barbeque support group. The Yambuk
Community are still coming each year to build the huge Hoekka marquees.
Since 1992 the organising body was transferred from Geelong Folk Music Club
to Port Fairy. After my two year 'sabbatical', the new committee invited me
back to put their first festival together. With the new town based
committee the local community support has grown enormously.

Highlights for me are many, but I'll never forget that sensational acoustic
/ electric concert by The Bushwackers in 1980; the spine tingling midnight
Boys of the Lough concert to open the festival in 1983; the singing of Jean
Redpath; the audacity of Sirocco leading a hall full of audience out into
the street.... and after that so many more, especially the wonderful people
and great friends we have made."

We asked Cliff Gilbert-Purssey....Jamie McKew had rung me and asked if I
had a bit of spare time to help get a new folk festival off the ground. A
bit of spare time? Of course I did. This was the 1970's (Flared pants,
sideburns and not an economic rationalist in sight. The only serious
trouble on the horizon was the Packer cricket circus.)

I had fond memories of the Western District - balmy days along the coast,
staying with friends at Koroit, exploring Tower Hill... and here we were
heading out towards Port Fairy to see what might come of this new idea. We
passed by places with names like Killarney and the Moyne River. Jamie
remarked that Port Fairy used to be known as Belfast last century.

From the start it was ideal. The atmosphere, the architecture, the fishing
port, the history, the pubs, the sheer Irishness of the place lent itself
to folk music and dancing revelry. There was a bit of magic about it all.
Jamie had a grandmother living nearby - a sparkling, energetic woman of 84
who was very much in tune with her garden and people and the world and was
just a little bit "fey". A leprechaun would not have been out of place here.
I can't remember much about those early meetings. I think our mission was
twofold - to win the locals over and reassure them that sharing their town
with a folk festival would not result in mass pillage and mayhem, and to
start work on the logistics - the venues, the facilities and catering.
It all came together of course. Just a small festival of a few hundred that
first year. I have abiding memories of sessions in The Caledonian and
somewhere drinking a heady local concoction called Blue Mako (I wonder if
they still serve it?) There was a happy and friendly buzz around town .
Those locals who were sceptical were won over and those who had backed the
idea were pleased and vindicated. A successful relationship had clearly
begun.

I came back again the next year. It was bigger and better but I had less to
do with the organising. I think I was with the band then, or perhaps I did
a concert spot or a workshop? Might have even done a "foot-up" in the
square (Is it really 20 years?)

Other festivals we started around that time are long gone - Chiltern,
Yinnar, even the names are forgotten. But not this one. Jamie was a dynamo.
He had inspired a team of hard-working people both in Geelong and in Port
Fairy. He had obviously seen the potential for something special.
And then it ended for me. For some reason I couldn't make it the next year
and then I was off overseas and interstate and haven't been back since.
Well, not quite. I called in with my family one August night a few years
ago. Here was the same quiet, old Port Fairy, almost unchanged. I found it
hard to imagine the many thousands of people who, I was assured, flock
there each March. I promised myself that one year soon I'd come back at
festival time and see it all for myself. One year soon.

We asked Marie Goldsworthy..."The first ever Port Fairy Folk Festival was
held on the weekend of December 2, 3 & 4 in 1977. It was a small event by
comparison with later developments, but surprisingly successful for the
organisers, a small group of members of the then recently formed Geelong
Folk Club.

Only months earlier, Jamie McKew had a great idea - a folk festival
featuring Irish music, held in the town first settled by many Irish
immigrants because of the availability of rich soil for potato-growing and
good fishing. The date was chosen to coincide with the local Moyneyana
Festival which was already being held in December. Jamie's remarkable
grandmother also lived just out of Port Fairy, so the organisers had a
ready made base when we travelled there to make arrangements! Another story
could be written about Jamie's grandmother - she deserves to be fondly
remembered.

A meeting of the organisers (Jamie McKew, Marie Goldsworthy & Fiona
Longfield from Geelong, Cliff Gilbert Purssey from Melbourne) was set up
with the Mayor of Port Fairy in the Council Chambers there. Ivan Milligan
was unable to attend that weekend, but his enthusiasm and ideas were
valuable in the planning which resulted. Various venues (some still an
integral part of the weekend) were inspected and selected and the now
famous large posters featuring fishing vessels were designed and printed -
as close as we could get to shamrock green!

The first Festival was to feature Irish and Australian Tradition. A weekend
ticket cost $4 (yes, four dollars!) and entitled entry to both
concert/workshop in the Community Centre Theatre at 3 p.m. on the Saturday
and the Ceilidhe at the Drill Hall over the road that evening. Colonial
dancing was popular and enjoyed by the participants in between various
performances.

Accommodation was not a big problem on that first weekend festival. I
stayed at the centrally located Youth Hostel, a short walk from the main
venues. Now almost 20 years on, my strongest memory is of walking about
with my pockets bulging with the entire takings from the sale of weekend
tickets at the door of the Community Centre - about $1000 - and the
distinct feeling that the Port Fairy Festival was indeed a success!"

We asked Russell Clark... " I first became really involved helping out with
the building of stages. Pipe from the building supplies was used to make
covers over the transport trays which in the early days were on the Gardens
Oval.

From then on there were so many little and big problems arising I was on
the go all the time trying to solve difficulties with power, plumbing,
water and so on. More than once the sparks were flying as winds tried to
rip down marquees.

Later on I built stages for the marquees in Southcombe Park when we moved
down there. But these were on a bed of drums and just were not stable or
safe. I well remember the year we lifted Cathal MacConnell of the Boys of
the Lough from the stage still sitting in his chair! We had pulled him out
of The Stump just before the concert and he played as brilliantly as ever.
But he wasn't up to navigating himself off the high stage. I knew then it
was time to build better ones. Eventually we began making the solid modular
stages that are now in use. These are being modified at the moment to make
them quicker to assemble.

When I became mayor I could see that there was a need to open up more
facilities around the town and get the council services behind the festival.
The real turning point came when the running of the festival was
transferred to a new town based committee. This has made all the difference
with much more local involvement and I am very pleased that we have such a
talented team.

Highlights have been many but winning the three Australian Tourism Awards
in a row and now the Hall of Fame Award has been great for us. I feel very
lucky to be involved with this amazing festival and I've enjoyed every
minute of it."

Sadly our president from 1992 - 1998 passed away on Boxing Day 1998.