IT WAS raining fit to burst a drought order and I was worried about a man with a chainsaw in the park.
Thankfully I couldn’t find him. But then there was no sign of the busking poets either.
Probably they’d all done the sensible thing as I did. And headed for a tea shop.
Longleys in the middle of Holmfirth was heaving. But my Holmfirth Arts Festival tour started right there.
I was soon busy staring at the walls. There was a striking textile by Jill Hayfield, of Holme, its greys and purple seemed to sing of the moors all around us.
And when I wove my way delicately through the tables to the cafe counter, I was stopped in my tracks by a display cabinet packed with John Yard’s delicate and beautiful ceramics.
My Arts Festival starts here, I thought and looked up to see my neighbours were Holmfirth’s resident master of arts Ashley Jackson and old friend Janet Benham, a devoted youth work volunteer at the Phoenix community centre in the town.
What better sign that rain or shine, art and supporting the festival are at the heart of this community.
Bits of bunting peeping out of a bag had me intrigued so I crossed the road to Holmfirth’s indoor market and was hit by a wall of sound.
The place was heaving. It was packed with laughter, the sound of sewing machines. And was that needles clicking?
It certainly was. I did a tour and was overwhelmed by colour, chatter and lots of nimble fingers.
There were two women dressed in period costume combing and drop spinning wool.
“Skills courtesy of Colne Valley Museum,” a voice whispered in my ear. And the same festival volunteer pointed out two boys, faces puckered in concentration, fingers pretty nimbly doing French knitting.
Oh how I loved that when I was a kid. These days there are knitting dollies to get you going but in my day, I used a wooden spool that had once held cotton, carefully hammered in four tacks, borrowed a crochet hook and some wool and off I went.
It was friendship bracelets then that popped out of the bottom of the spool, the brightly coloured rope of knitting, ideal for wrapping round your wrist.
I suspect that some of the children busy on Saturday were doing something similar but others were hard at work creating felt pictures, lending a hand in the rug-making corner and generally having a great time.
It was the sewing corner though that was calling.
I headed for a large corner table lured by the sight of a single hand operated Singer machine, its black surfaces decorated in gold.
I just knew that somewhere, there would probably be a dark wooden case with a Singer motif transfer in gold on the front and that the machine would have a wooden plinth in which to hide away spools of cotton, pins, needles and fragments of cloth. Treasures.
This was the sort of machine that as a child, I saw in virtually every house I ever visited. People ran up their own curtains, turned out their own home spun couture, on occasions dressed their children in the most unlikely things.
Here, the single remnant from my childhood sat along its modern descendants, all pristine white and looking as if they could just as well whisk up something in the kitchen as they could in the dress department.
On Saturday, busy fingers were upcycling which to you and me means dragging something out of a drawer and shoving it in a bin liner ready for the charity shop but to others means snipping and sewing away to create something that will happily go back in the wardrobe.
Karen Dennis was sharing the skills and the courage which meant people could take home something destined to be worn not binned.
A trio of children posed willingly with their felt picture creations, rightly proud of their afternoon’s work.
Textile artist Sue Clay was drawing out all that creativity and making pictures great fun.
Linda Smithers seemed to have a huge table of workers, including one man showing serious intent with a large pair of scissors.
He, like his neighbours, was working hard on a communal rag-rug making session and with expert Sue on hand could have carpeted the town.
But what was that. I thought I’d spotted a crown. Oh dear. I didn’t know SHE was here.
As it turned out, it was the queen. But not that one.
If I’d spotted her earlier I would have tugged my forelock to Julie Pearson who on the day was crowned Queen of Bunting.
Rightly so. Apparently she’s made 200 yards of the stuff. Holmfirth’s gone bunting crazy and Julie and others have been leading the way, dashing them off in right royal style and making enough bunting to festoon every inch of the town.
The biggest crowd for part of the time I was there circled the knitting table where there were clearly some experienced hands as well as some new ones. But one of the great things about this incredibly wet Saturday afternoon was that no-one cared.
Yes it was pouring and grey outside, but indoors it was full of warm chatter, loads of willing hands and fun things to make.
Everyone seemed to be helping everyone else and those who weren’t sewing, knitting, snipping or stitching were fetching and carrying cups of tea and cakes. And yes, the king of the cakes was surely Christofi from the Old Bridge bakery who had provided cakes fit for knitting kings and queens.
And if you are still worried about the chainsaw man, don’t be. He might have been rained off on Saturday but sculptor Simon Kent was back in Victoria Park on Sunday creating sparks and fantastic tree trunk sculptures. Terrific stuff and there’s more to do this weekend.
