Wellingborough Diggers Festival 2023 to return on May Day with live music, speakers and Caribbean food

Wellingborough Diggers are once again hosting a May Day festival, inviting people from all over to enjoy local music, food, stalls and a real ale bar.

The festival returned in 2022 after a two-year absence, and is now getting back to its annual format as it hopes to offer an evening of entertainment on May 1 at the Wellingborough African-Caribbean Centre in Rock Street.

Among the live music acts will be Russell Heyworth, a contemporary singer songwriter from Northampton, Isaac Hughes-Dennis, politi-folk comedy musician described as ‘the most un-politically correct young person’, and Ouse Valley Singles Club, a comedy skiffle punk band from Bedford.

Speakers include local poet Myrtle Roach, Cllr Sylvia Erskine, Chris York and Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil activist Anthony Loukes.

During the period after the English Civil War, the ‘Diggers’, a party of agrarian communists led by Gerrard Winstanley, organised some of the people to dig land on the outskirts of Wellingborough after the town was plundered for two days as a reprisal for its Royalist stance.

The festival was established as an annual community event in Wellingborough to remember the impoverished people of the town who moved to common land to carve out a humble life for themselves, and today the festival is a fixture of the calendar in May of every year.

Advance ‘early bird’ tickets are £6 and can be booked here, whereas tickets on the door can be purchased for £8 on the night.

Food, including Caribbean chicken, goat, fish, rice and peas and salad, must be pre-ordered in advance, and to do so people should contact [email protected].