Audlem on BBC Radio Stoke

AudlemOnline was featured on BBC Radio Stoke's James Watt Show yesterday afternoon.

In a lengthy discussion, number one item was next weekend's (27 – 30th May) Audlem Music & Arts Festival – 85 music acts, poetry events, art exhibition and all free.

It's sponsored entirely by local businesses and organisations so all free for festival goers. Camping for just £5 a night to cover the cost of the toilets right in the centre of the village.

A highlight of interest to Radio Stoke listeners, as another regular Raving Reporter on the James Watt Show, Billy Gibbons, features at the festival,. Billy is performing on The Lord Combermere stage at 1.30pm on the Saturday, that's 28th May, with New Moon Fever. Of course with Billy, you get jokes as well as his music. Always great entertainment.

The interview reminded listeners that the Festival runs from Thursday next week to Bank Holiday Monday and is really worth getting to.

Poetry was featured too as a Festival favourite is the Poetry Slam next Thursday at 7.30pm in the Bridge. Poets go head to head, battling it out to woo the audience with their scintillating spoken word. Who will be crowned the 5th Audlem Slam Champion? You decide. Anything could happen!

Lots of poetry over the weekend to listen to, perform and write poetry with Festival favourite, performance poet Emma Purshouse. Previous Poetry Slam winners will return from Salford and poet laureates from Birmingham, even Milton Keynes.

There was mention of our local Environmental Group, ADAPT, which has proposed a 20mph speed limit in the village centre. Lots of debate after they presented the idea at a recent Parish Council meeting. Mind you anyone who knows the centre of Audlem with its narrow winding roads may wonder how anyone could even get up to 20mph but we locals know that some really can...and more.

It was explained how ADAPT do a lot of good work with a Saturday home-produced vegetable and honey stand. One of their members, Chris Knibbs, even had a good story, with photo, on AudlemOnline yesterday about a dragonfly rarely seen this far North, perhaps a sign of the way the climate is changing.

Finally, the cemetery got a mention as a history of Audlem Cemetery was on AudlemOnline this week. It was explained that it is a very beautiful spot but of particular interest is a relatively new memorial. Ralph Warburton, who runs the cemetery – he also runs the Festival so he's multi-talented – found unrecorded the graves of 80 paupers from the nineteenth century under a load of bramble and just a wild patch of ground.

He ordered a special granite memorial stone from India and it now stands proudly in the cemetery with the names and details of 80 forgotten poor people. Rather moving story.

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