We know we said there were too many highlights to choose from on our stage at Port Eliot this year… but… we’re going to take this post to single out one particular event for a special mention (possibly because it’s being repeated next month – more of that later*).

Sunday afternoon’s talk on Nick Drake’s life and work did what our Sunday afternoons at Port Eliot always seem to do – it delivered an emotional response that lifted the spirits way beyond the stratospheric levels they already were at. Whether it was his sister – Gabrielle – talking to our friend Andy Childs about his father’s meticulous diary keeping in the months leading up to Nick’s death or Cally’s artful dissemination of dates, times, sessions and sales (who knew the sales figures of his records were actually sort-of-respectable for the time?); whether it was eighteen year old folk singer Daisy Vaughan‘s version of Nick’s Clothes of Sand sung in Spanish (and played on Nick’s original guitar) or Nonny Denny‘s transcendent trip through Molly Drake’s songbook or Trevor and Hannah‘s closing duet I’m not sure. I just remember staring out at a tent – packed to the edges, sauna hot, pin drop silent – and thinking “this is why we do it.”

A commemorative plateAndy Childs talking with Gabrielle Drake and Cally CollomonGabrielle DrakeDaisy VaughanNonny DennyGabrielle & CallyTrevor Moss with Nick Drake’s guitarCally

*Caught by the River will present Remembered for a While at Good Life Experience in Flintshire (18th – 20th September). Tickets and information here.