Upton downtown blues

Years ago we made a couple of annual visits to the Upton-on-Severn blues festival. It was great, no central stage but there were blues musicians performing in most of the pubs. There was no entrance charge, though you, of course, were expected to drink and eat in those pubs. There was just a simple list of what was on where and when. Also a good-sized car park with no restrictions on overnight sleeping in a motorcaravan, which we did. One of the groups was really excellent so, of course, we all cheered and cheered  and cried for more. The female lead singer took the microphone and said “Sorry, we don’t know any more songs, we only got together at the beginning of the week.”

After a long respite we decided to revisit Upton, and it had fundamentally changed. It was still ‘free’, but cost £95 per person to stay in the official parking area which had a stage.

We wanted the pubs not the stage so arrived on spec on the Friday. The camping site was absolutely huge and littered with closely packed vehicles. We drove on, as planned, to a public car park where we expected to stay for the night. It too was absolutely jam packed, unbearably so.

Fortunately I had a back plan. We drove on to Ledbury, a rather lovely town graced with its stunning black and white Market House on stilts and its impressive Feathers Hotel, also black and white. I knew the town quite well having shone shoes there during my adventures as a shiner. We parked, had a wander around then dined in the Feathers which was quite swish. On my previous visit the manager did not allow me to offer my shoe shining service. He said that his guests would not like that! This time I was a guest and really appreciated the ale brewed in the town itself, and the meal - I was allowed to select three sides rather than having a main meal.

Afterwards we strolled around the corner to the Talbot where, in the large open-air courtyard, a local group played live music to an interesting looking crowd of locals who smoked pipes and roll ups. We had found our place in Ledbury, crowded Upton was not for us.