Folkestone International Folklore Festival

Catalogue note. The surviving covers agree on the year but not always on the programme dates. The Bear appears without an individual billing and subsequently treated this as an administrative error.

The 1977 Programme

The Folkestone International Folklore Festival brought visiting dance, music and customary performance to the town. Later programme copies place the Bear and Hooden Horse among the processions, seafront gatherings and public-house trials.

The Bear’s own account says that he was invited as a cultural delegation of one. The printed material is less precise. One cover merely adds “including the Bear,” which he regarded as headline treatment.

Purple Folkestone International Folklore Festival programme — Souvenir programme, 18–24 June 1977. Bear and two forms of Hooden Horse are shown on the cover.

The Bear holding a Folkestone International Folklore Festival sign — Festival sign retained after a garden committee meeting. The accompanying couple are not identified in the envelope.

The Bear walking ahead of musicians in a seafront procession — Seafront procession copy. The Bear is ahead of the musicians and therefore assumed he was conducting them.

Purple 1977 folklore festival programme including the Bear — Alternative programme cover: “including the Bear.” The August dates are the subject of a separate pencil correction.

Bear and Hooden Horse party on the Leas — Leas gathering with visiting dancers, musicians, Horse and Bear.

Folkestone International Folklore Festival souvenir programme — Later souvenir-programme design used in the licensing file. The Bear described this pose as “the weigh-in.”

After the Festival

Public-house trial cards continued after the main procession. The Horse received rosettes. The Bear received several verbal cautions and one plate of sandwiches intended for a visiting dance group.

The later Club Shepway papers treated the festival material as a dormant local form capable of revival. This eventually produced the licensed karaoke arrangement and the present disagreement over who brought whom back.

OPEN THE INTERNATIONAL FOLKLORE FIASCO FILE