‘Sidmouth Festival compère caught breaking and entering’

Here I am at Sidmouth and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my performances with Narthen and Blowzabella and now I am on compering duties until I leave.

This reminded me of something that happened once on a previous occasion quite a few years ago and as usual is so ridiculous you know I can’t be making it up.

I was down to compère in the Ham. I can’t at this point remember who was on that night or exactly what year it was. Well….it is Wednesday of Sidmouth week. I am surprised I can remember anything at all. The job was completed, the concert had gone well and I’d managed to blag a lift, for myself and a friend, to the ‘Late Night Extra’ which was the late evening dance up at the Bowd marquee quite a way up the hill above Sidmouth.

It wasn’t until we’d actually got there that I realised I’d left my handbag back stage at the Ham and it had my ticket in it. I went up to the stewards who found someone with a walkie talkie who spoke to someone who said, ‘it’ll have been taken to the office by now , for safety, and she’ll be able to collect it tomorrow’. They also said, ‘it’s Jo Freya so let her in’. Sometimes having some notoriety is useful. So that was great we relaxed and had a fun filled couple of hours and managed to sort a lift back down. We needed to get back into the main part of Sidmouth as our accommodation was a self catering flat above the antiques shop right in the middle of Sidmouth. We probably got out of the car at about 1.45 am.

It was only as we were walking to our quarters that I realised not only had my ticket been in my bag but the key to get into the flat was also in the bag. We wandered round to see if any lights were on in the hopes that someone would let us in but there were none. Being a flat above a shop, knocking on the door was not very audible upstairs but we tried that too……no joy.

There was a wheely bin outside so the next thing we tried was one of us holding the bin steady while the other one climbed on top of it in an attempt to reach a first floor window to see if we could push it open or knock on it. No joy. Neither of us were tall enough to even reach the window sill.

We discussed what on Earth we were going to do….we’d even tried shouting ‘Tony’ very loudly as we were sharing the flat with the late and lovely Tony Rose. All to no avail.

Suddenly I had a brain wave. I said to my pal….,’you know what I am sure I’ve seen ladders at the back of the Ham marquee. We could borrow one and see if we can get in through that window. I’m sure it would reach’. So off we trotted at about 2.30am. In those days some of the sound engineer crew used to sleep in the Ham in order to be on site for the sound checks that started in the morning the next day. So we crept into the back of the Ham and tried to lift this sliding ladder thing quietly. It was one of those where one half slides down to make it easier to manage and so that you could extend it to what ever height you needed. I think the sound engineers had had a jolly good wind down too and, despite a massive amount of swearing, giggling and clunking from us, weren’t hearing anything or feeling any pain. The snoring never ceased for one second.

So there we were, two women both ironically wearing those long sleeved Breton stripy T’shirts, carting a ladder between us through the streets of Sidmouth looking very much like we might be up to no good. We got to the shop got the ladder to extend to just below the first floor window and up my companion goes to knock on the window or try and get it open and I held the bottom to make sure it didn’t wobble. At which point and with impeccable timing a police car arrived and two police officers got out…………Ooops!

I went straight into a speel along the lines of, ‘good evening officer. This isn’t what it looks like…….(gulp)…I am a compère working for the festival and I unfortunately left my handbag where I was working and it’s now locked in an office with my key in it….blah di blah di blah…’ At which point the upstairs window opens and Tony Rose popped his head out. ‘Do you know these women sir’ one officer asked, ‘no I’ve never met them in my life before’ quipped Tony..much to our alarm . Oh how we laughed…not!…and then he did confess to knowing us and came down to let us in. We had to leave the door on the latch and carry the ladder back of course and the whole thing was like some strange keystone cop farce with us dressed as the burglars . Certainly not something you’re likely to forget and nearly resulted in the headline that is the title of the blog.

Thank you Tony for your perfect and very funny quip , for having been part of this ridiculous saga and for showing no anger at being woken at 3am Though he’s no longer with us this memory of him is always with me and his music also makes sure he is not forgotten.