The world from my window

It's ten thirty in the morning and a bus pulls up outside our front door. All aboard for the Sidmouth Special. For just £9 a head, we weave our way out of Lush Places through narrow lanes, high up as anything and looking out over the hedgerows to the hills and views beyond and into people's back gardens. And then we cross the border into Devon and make our way to the elegant seaside resort of Sidmouth, where, for the past sixty years, the renowned seaside folk festival clatters, tinkles, strums, beats, sings and dances its way through the crowds. Usually, the town is home to some 15,000 souls, sixty percent of whom are over sixty five. But during Sidmouth Folk Week, the population soars and takes on a life of its own. My uncle, George Withers , sang in the pubs here for many years. Today, there are tickets to be bought for those who want them and street performances for those who are quite happy to potter around and see what turns up. The esplanade, with its gente...

You're at a ball in your best dress and dolly shoes. You're watching everyone on the dance floor. Sniggering at the man who can't dance and his partner doing his best to look the other way. You're umming and ahhing about getting up and doing your thing. The Temptations start up with Get Ready, you take to the dance floor and get into the swing, albeit a bit self consciously. Your confidence grows as you mouth along to the chorus. And then it changes into bloody Junior Walker and the All Stars. Bugger. Then you're 17 again when Abba's Dancing Queen starts up. But just when you were least expecting it it slips up a gear into Gimme, Gimme, Gimme a Man After Bloody Midnight. Medleys. I hate them. Jive Bunny have a lot to answer for. Mr Grigg was so enraged at Saturday's ball he had words with the DJ. The response was: 'I've been doing this 20 years mate. I know what gets people dancing.' Mr Grigg promptly told him he's been dancing for more t...

Christmas came and went, too many parties to mention all over the village, and everyone suffering from coughs and colds, replicated all over the country. Could this be germ warfare? What a great way to disable the population! On New Year's Eve, the Square comes alive with people in fancy dress pouring out of the pub and nearby houses. Pirates rub shoulders with nurses, a Legionnaire is caught embracing a Roman emperor and several men in kilts do cartwheels across the road. Up in the church tower, the die-hard ringers wait with anticipation, ready to ring the bells when the clock strikes 12. There is a clatter up the steps as a woman in a nun's outfit, whose stockings and suspenders are visible as she hitches up her skirt, and a man dressed as a Roman Catholic priest, complete with small whisky bottle in his top pocket, get there just in time to take their places to ring in 2008. I greet New Year's Day with a sneeze and the sound of bells, as a group of morris dancers fr...