A richly historic festival

12:06pm Friday 30th May 2003

This year's Bedford Park Festival, which starts next week, is both historical and up-to-the minute, writes Father Kevin Morris, vicar of St Michael & All Angels, Bedford Park.

Opened by John Humphrys, the voice of the Today programme, it will embrace Pop Idol (a talent show on the Band Stand), two ska-reggae bands (one fresh from BBC1) and even the latest Harry Potter book (celebrated in the children's fancy dress parade and a Harry Potter Festival on publication day, June 21st). The Festival's unmissable sunflower banners will bring a blaze of colour to St Michael & All Angels Church and Parish Hall, and there'll be hundreds of hits on our website http://www.bedfordparkfestival.org.

Yet it is clearly the same local event it was in 1967, when the Festival was launched - under the patronage of John Betjeman - to help save the world's first garden suburb from demolition by developers; to foster a sense of community in Bedford Park; and to raise money for the repair and upkeep of the church.

That first Festival included an exhibition by local artists, past and present; a funfair and fete on the Green; a conducted tour of the Bedford Park architecture (including houses by Norman Shaw, Voysey and others); a poetry evening; a children's musical revue; and concerts in the church and local houses. All will be held again this year, together with more recent - but well-established - innovations, such as the Photographic Exhibition, the Open Gardens and the Festival Mass on the final weekend.

However, some events sadly haven't survived. In the early days, they put on a Grand Fashion Contest, a dog show, donkey rides and a beautiful baby competition! There were marching bands and full-length drama productions. But it is recognisably the same Festival.

In 1967, the Bishop of London wrote the foreword to the programme and articulated the theological basis for the Festival. He saw the Church's task as fostering a real sense of community'' and his hope was that, as a parish church, St Michael's will be increasingly at the heart of the community.''

The Festival Committee was chaired by the vicar of St Michael's, the Reverend Jack Jenner. Two of its members - Ted Holloway and Leonard Darke - still live in Bedford Park and will be taking part again this year. The committee felt they were echoing the original 1880s vision of Jonathan Carr and Norman Shaw, the creators of Bedford Park, in celebrating local artistic achievement and enabling a new generation of residents to respond with its collective talent and enthusiasm.''

In its early days, Bedford Park was a centre of the arts and crafts movement and home to artists and writers such as Camille and Lucien Pissarro, WB Yeats, JB Yeats and TM Rooke. Now its residents include artists, musicians, actors, writers, film directors and media folk - many of whom will be performing this year.

But aside from its artistic importance, the Festival has had a profound effect on its community - helping save a beautiful district from developers and Acton Council, and turning Bedford Park into a conservation area.

In the 50s and 60s, Victorian buildings were out of fashion, the area was run down, and some of the largest and finest houses had been demolished to make way for modern blocks of flats. There was strong lobbying from local residents, who set up the Bedford Park Society in 1963 to highlight the historic and architectural importance of the area, as the world's first garden suburb. But the Ministry of Housing and Local Government had turned a deaf ear, even though later developments such as Hampstead Garden Suburb had been listed.

Hence the decision to launch a Festival, reviving an event that had last been held in the 1890s, with the aim of restoring the community spirit and raising money for the repair of the church. In the Vicarage, they held an exhibition drawing attention to Bedford Park's artistic and architectural heritage and its recent plight, showing the damage done by developers.

Within a month, 356 of the houses had received provisional listing and before long a dozen or more roads had been declared conservation areas by the boroughs of Ealing and Hounslow, ensuring that important architectural features cannot be altered.

Since then the Festival has helped raise many thousands of pounds for the church and other local projects, most recently the £500,000 refurbishment of St Michael's Victorian Parish Hall. Now we are looking outwards again, raising money for other local charities. This year we have pledged to raise £25,000 for St Mary's Convent & Nursing Home rebuilding appeal.

But more importantly we'll be bringing real enjoyment and a feeling of community to this part of west London - as the Festival's founders set out to do more than 35 years ago.