50 years of the Bollington Festival
The Bollington Festival is a festival which takes place every four or five years in the small town of Bollington in the Pennine foothills near Macclesfield, Cheshire in England. Launched in 1964, organizers claim there is no other event in Britain like it in terms of its scale and scope, being run entirely by volunteers with the support of many local people and organisations.
The festival was the idea of John Coope, a doctor who cared for the health of thousands of patients but also found time to write a book on Chekhov and consider the future of post-war society. Almost singlehandedly, Dr John set out in the 1960s to create in the village, a sense of community to counteract what he saw as a drift away from the collective towards the individual, and his work continued until his death on Christmas Day 2008. The 2005 festival was the first in which he played no major role.
Coope believed that a community should be alive and kicking and, above all, an active place where people join together to achieve more than they can as lone operators. His legacy is in the organisations he launched, revived and often led: the brass band; the drama group; the festival players; the light opera group; the civic society; and the festival choir. He was also the driving force in the creation of an arts centre (few English towns of 7,000 people have one), a regular venue for string quartets, jazz, stand-up comedy, plays, pantomimes, as well as talks and lectures. It was said that many a patient who went to the surgery with a sore throat found himself signed up for the basses in the Festival Choir before any prescription was written.
Sources: Wikipedia and Happy Valley
The festival was the idea of John Coope, a doctor who cared for the health of thousands of patients but also found time to write a book on Chekhov and consider the future of post-war society. Almost singlehandedly, Dr John set out in the 1960s to create in the village, a sense of community to counteract what he saw as a drift away from the collective towards the individual, and his work continued until his death on Christmas Day 2008. The 2005 festival was the first in which he played no major role.
Coope believed that a community should be alive and kicking and, above all, an active place where people join together to achieve more than they can as lone operators. His legacy is in the organisations he launched, revived and often led: the brass band; the drama group; the festival players; the light opera group; the civic society; and the festival choir. He was also the driving force in the creation of an arts centre (few English towns of 7,000 people have one), a regular venue for string quartets, jazz, stand-up comedy, plays, pantomimes, as well as talks and lectures. It was said that many a patient who went to the surgery with a sore throat found himself signed up for the basses in the Festival Choir before any prescription was written.
Sources: Wikipedia and Happy Valley
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