Bathing Beauties Festival 2009

The UK's only Beach Hut Fesival - 18th, 19th and 20th September 2009

Cathy Watts will be taking part in the Bathing Beauties Festival 2009 and signing copies of her book over the weekend.

Festival goes from strength to strengthThis year’s festival of Bathing Beauties will be held over three days the 18th, 19th and 20th September instead of the usual two days as the festival starts to grow and take shape as the largest and longest linear coastal art festival in England. The festival will stretch from Mablethorpe with a performance space at Trusville and spread down to Sutton-on-Sea and Sandilands a distance of approximately five miles. A spectacular programme of events is being planned using the beach huts as mini art/craft galleries, exhibition spaces and the coastal landscape as the backdrop for performance, sculptural and installation art.This year the country’s leading authority on Beach Huts Dr Kathryn Ferry has chose the Festival to launch her new book ‘Sheds on the Beach’ Kathryn Ferry’s love of beach huts inspired her to travel around the coast researching their history and has led to appearances on radio and television, including the acclaimed BBC TV series ‘Coast’. Kathryn has a background in architectural history and worked for the Victorian Society after completing her PhD at Cambridge University. She sat on the judging committee for Bathing Beauties and is the author of Beach huts and bathing machines (Shire, Feb 2009) and Sheds on the Seashore: a tour through beach hut history (PenPress, June 2009). The latter book combines new historical research with the story of her two-month trip around the English coast between County Durham and the Bristol Channel. ‘I made my first visit to the Lincolnshire coast on that journey and the fantastic sandy beaches exceeded my expectations. The pagoda-type huts at Mablethorpe are completely unique and despite having seen some 20,000 huts they’re definitely my favourites.’ Kathryn is looking forward to taking part in this year’s Bathing Beauties festival and will be giving a talk about beach hut history as part of the weekend’s events.Bathing Beauties to launch her new book ‘Sheds on the Beach’ and will be doing talks and book signings during the festival The Mablethorpe Tourism Forum who run the event are keen to strengthen the literature and comedy content so any budding authors and poets would be welcomed at his and future events.
Graham Cullen chair of the Tourism Forum said ‘ Although we are gaining a reputation nationally as a premier art event the festival is also a community event so we are keen to encourage our local established or budding artists, authors, poets, actors etc to take part’.
Dancers of all genre are welcome take part in the Festival ‘Longest (linear) Promenade Dance’ in which we are looking to attract as many different dance groups and dance styles to help us dance our way over the five mile stretch of the festival adding to the spectacle and fun of the event .
The Tourism forum is also looking for new committee members to help shape the festival and also volunteers on the day so if you want to take part, help on the committee or volunteer please contactHelen Matthews on 07 894 292 641 or e-mail helen.matthews9@btopenworld.com