Cobargo Folk Festival - Folk That Care

Yesterday my kind friends gifted me another Labrador-free day, and while one stayed home to keep an eye on the Labs, two of us headed up the road to spend a day at the Cobargo Folk Festival.

Never having been to a folk festival, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect - images of happy pants and bongs were rattling around somewhere in my imagination. We arrived to see plenty happy pants on display but the rest of my pre-concieved notions were way off the mark.

We had a thoroughly enjoyable day being entertained by an impressive array of extremely talented local and international musicians playing everything from Irish Folk to Bluegrass. There were bush poets, belly dancers, fiddle players and all sorts of weird and wonderful instruments. And a separate program dedicated to entirely Indigenous music, dance and culture put on by the Yuin people of the region.

A highlight, especially for my mate Helen, was Eric Bogle and his band, which included an exceptional and captivating violinist (fiddle player in folk parlance) whose playing was so mesmerising that Eric forgot to start singing again when her solo came to the end. For those who aren't all that familiar with Eric Bogle, he's a Scottish ex-pat who's been around the Australian (and international) folk music scene for several decades. His songs range from irreverent and slightly bawdy to deeply poignant and moving. And there's nearly always a political undertone to his lyrics.

One of the songs he played yesterday was originally titled No Man's Land. He wrote it after he and his wife "Carmel the Magnificent" visited the WWI cemetery at Flanders Field. Eric told us that after he'd released the song in 1976 the Fureys liked it so much they re-recorded it, changing the song's title to The Green Fields of France.

Years later, just after Tony Blair became Prime Minister, he received a letter from a 10-year-old Belfast girl beggjng him to bring peace to Northern Ireland as she'd never known a time without war. Apparently Blair was so moved he presented the girl with a framed copy of Eric Bogle's song, calling it his "favourite peace poem". While he credited Eric as the author, he got it a little bit wrong, telling the little girl that Eric Bogle was a Scottish corporal who'd died in the First World War.

Eric found it amusing that Tony Blair had believed that a young corporal, mortally wounded and lying in a muddy trench would use his dying minutes to pull a pencil and some paper out of his kit and write a poem about the experience.

Either way, it's a good song and well worth a listen.

The best part about yesterday's outing was spending the day in Cobargo and seeing how the community is recovering from the horrendous fires three years ago. In some of these photos you can see on the surrounding mountains the remains of trees that will never grow back. Cobargo's a lovely village with a wonderful community and the annual Folk Festival is definitely something to put on your bucket list.

And lastly, for those wondering, Juddy is now past the half way point of her six-week recouperation and despite being fed-up of being couped up all day, she's making good progress.