Last year's summer festival was held on Saturday 9 July 2011 from 12 noon to 11pm. As you can tell from the pictures everyone had a great time this year with only one cloudburst to mar an otherwise fine day. Everyone dived for cover when the heavens opened but not for long and the band continued to play until the sun and the audience emerged again. And what a day of music it was.

The range of music was amazing with rock'n'roll from the Rob family Band who kicked off the festival with Tommy, now aged 9, having graduated from guitar to drums. A mix of country & Yiddish music from Butt of Lewis,  bluegrass from the Ruskin Hillbillies, Latin & South American from Cameron & Marco, and some truly great harmonies from the girls in the brilliant Soul Experience band.  There was some majic jazz music from the Hot Club of Purley, which included young Matthew Tighe on fiddle.

The Emerald Aces were unfortunately unable to manage the full band for the festival but not to disappoint their  many fans the front man Robin Black created the Black Jacks especially for the day.  The folk trio the Three Busketeers came straight from another festival to perform a wonderful mixture of American, Irish & English folk

Ron Trueman-Border, a well known singer-songwriter, performed two outstanding sets - one with his own band the Perfect Strangers & one with the Feuding Lloyds. The Feuding Lloyds is yet another outstanding band which formed in Ruskin House and has its own unique blend of music. Ron & the Feuding Lloyds also collaborated to produce a special limited edition CD/EP - keeping faith with live music- sold on the day to raise funds for Ruskin House. After the many bands came the individual performers and duos who maintained the momentum and kept the audience there until late into the evening.

There was poetry in the air with Bart Wolffe, a poet and author exiled from Zimbabwee and an inspiring  performance of music and dancing by a Russian/Ukrainian children's choir in national costume. Ken's  barbecue, Theresa's tea stall and the bars were kept busy all day. Carol on the children's facepainting was in great demand with a constant stream of customers. Stalls included Jons' tombola, Janice's plants, Croydon pictures, Jennie's handmade jewellery, Sharon's Bric-a Brac and Doreen raising funds for the Combat Stress charity. 

Our thanks go to the many volunteers and also the staff at Ruskin House who worked so hard to make it such a special day. Special mention for Robin who managed the sound system from the  beginning to the end of the festival and to Andy who did such a brilliant job on the door and ensured that we reached our target of raising £1,000 for Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital Charity.

Sean & Les