Islington Tribune - by JAMIE WELHAM Published: 14 September 2007
Six-year-old Hannah Tierney and Annie Azzopardi
Community festival celebrates its 21st with environmental theme
THERE was a time when folk music and morris dancing were the preserve of beards and anoraks. Clearly nobody told the hoards of fun-seekers who had a ball at the Gillespie Park Community Festival on Sunday. The festival, opened by Jeremy Corbyn MP, has stayed loyal to its green roots and the crowds enjoyed a host of environmentally-themed activities at the Highbury nature reserve.
Celebrating its 21st year, the festival was founded to campaign against developers building on the disused British Rail site.
Children marched to their own beats at an African drumming workshop and, as ever, the face painters did a roaring trade in cartoon characters that parents probably thought they could get away from for the day.
But mums and dadsa kept one eye on the little terrors from the comfort of the acoustic café where they sipped on camomile tea, listened to Kurdish folk music and enjoyed the last of the summer sun.