Fundraising drive launched in place of 'church fete' on Acton Green
Fancy dress will still be a part of this year's Bedford Park Festival
This weekend (12 and 13 June) would normally have seen the Green Days fete taking place on Acton Green to mark the start of the Bedford Park Festival.
However, Covid-19 restrictions have made it impossible to run the event this year.
There will still be the traditional Bedford Park Summer Exhibition in St Michael & All Angels Church and a Children’s Fun Day in place of Green Days weekend.
The organisers have also launched a ‘Please Give for Green Days’ campaign inviting people to donate to the Festival charities as a reminder of what they are missing (and saving!) this weekend because of Covid-19. You can donate online here.
There will still be a Fancy Dress parade, and historic photos of earlier parades have been released on social media, with a message thanking parents (many of whom are now grandparents) for keeping the Green Days tradition alive for over 50 years. You can see them in the ‘50 years of Green Days’ albums.
“We’re obviously sorry we can’t hold the Green Days church fete this year” said Torin Douglas, who usually acts as the MC, introducing the celebrities who open the Festival. “Last year we held it online, with a full line-up of entertainment and a craft fair, but you can’t do that more than once. And it’s still not possible to hold it in person because of the pandemic – though the rest of the Bedford Park Festival will take place with secure precautions.”
As well as the Fancy Dress Parade, the Children’s Fun Day features a Bake-Off Challenge for 8 to 12-year-olds, with cookery writer and broadcaster Jo Pratt as head judge. There are also Sports Fun activities and a Story Corner for younger children, with readings of Ernest the Elephant by Anthony Brown and Gaspard the Fox by Radio 4 newsreader Seb Soane and illustrator James Mayhew. You can see the details on the Children’s Fun Day page.
The artworks in the Bedford Park Summer Exhibition are all for sale, with a third of the sale price being donated to the Festival charities: The Upper Room, WaterHarvest, West London Welcome and St Michael & All Angels Church, which has run the Festival for all its 55 years. They are displayed in St Michael & All Angels Church till Friday 18 June and on The Chiswick Calendar website beyond that. You can see the details here.
The organisers say that tickets are selling fast for the Festival concerts, talks and other events. The two events at Chiswick Playhouse – An Evening with Torin Douglas and An Evening with Phyllis Logan – have sold out, so these will now also be livestreamed by Chiswickbuzz to allow more people to watch them.
Tickets are also on sale for Adorable Dora, the first chance to see West End diva Rosemary Ashe in her musical tribute to national treasure Dora Bryan; recitals by sopranos Milly Forrest and Luci de Nordwall Cornish; violinist David Juritz and friends – Paul Edmund Davies (flute), Judith Busbridge (viola) and Adrian Bradbury (cello); organist Jonathan Dods; and pianist Mark Viner; a wine tasting with Victoria Daskal; the drama Hauntings, with Gerard Logan, and talks. At St Michael's, author Charles Sale will talk about his new book The Covers Are Off, about cricket’s ‘civil war’ at Lord’s.
The full programme can be seen online where tickets can be bought.
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June 13, 2021
