Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering

Can you help the Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering to keep going in 2025? We've an extra special reason to be waving the begging bowl again this year in the face of increasing challenges: the sad death in February of Alex Swailes MBE, our much-loved long-standing figurehead, the Gathering's own Morpeth Gadgy.

This made our voluntary committee all the more determined to find the costs of all the indoor and outdoor events that make up our annual spring-time festival, so we can make the 57th Gathering a fitting commemoration of Alex and the Northumbrian traditions that he so energetically personified. Alex made the role very much his own as he carried out his duties as MC and the ebullient embodiment of Morpeth’s welcome to the world, especially at the Saturday morning procession which this year will entail very high costs for the road closure traffic management. It was only last year at the amazing age of 91 that Alex stepped down from being the face of the Gathering, handing over to Ron Forster the Gadgy Staff, the “big stick” based on the old Town Bailiff’s badge of office.

The three-day festival from 25th to 27th April aims to showcase the best of NE England's traditional music, dance, dialect, art, craft and heritage, with plenty of chances to join in and learn new skills. Please help us bring to Morpeth performers of the calibre of legendary music duo Bob Fox and Stu Luckley, reuniting specially for our event; storyteller Shonaleigh revisiting her Millennium project The Myth of Morpeth; locally-based but nationally-known cartoonist David Haldane, rising stars Megan Wisdom and Mossy Christian and the young folk ensemble The Northumbrian Ranters. We can only do this, along with providing have-a-go-workshops, free and low-cost concerts, and competitions in craft, writing, performing and dialect speaking, if we can afford fees, venue hire, publicity and safety provision.

Our reserves have shrunk drastically since Covid and recent obstacles concerning venues and manpower meant we weren't sure whether we could go ahead with the festival at all until very recently, giving no time to shape grant applications (and these days, funders understandably favour health and social need charities sooner than cultural organisations). Every donation received now will go to our parent body, MORPETH ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, a registered charity, to help towards the cost of staging the 57th annual Morpeth Gathering.

Thank you in advance for your contribution, which will go towards ensuring the Gathering has a future.