WESTBURY Music and Arts Festival 2012 was officially opened at a special reception held at The Laverton on Friday night.
The event featured music from local band, The Yirdbards, and there was an art and photography exhibition by Matravers School.
Introduced by Westbury’s town crier, Sean Price, chair of the festival, Roy Inwood, said there is lots to look foward to in the town’s fourth music and arts festival over the next two weeks. He said this year’s festival is a mixture of popular events from previous festivals, combined with new events. Roy Inwood also thanked everyone who helped make the festival possible including members of the committee “for their tireless work.”
The festival was officially opened by Steve Lloyd, chair of the Chernobyl Children’s Life Line who spoke about the local charity. He explained that the charity was started in 1992 and since then, 6,000 children have enjoyed a month’s respite in the local area. The youngsters are continuing to live with health problems following the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986 and Steve Lloyd said that by spending one month here, it adds two a half years to their life expectancy.
After the official opening, guests enjoyed further entertainment from The Yirdbards and had the opportunity to browse the exhibition.
Mike Pearce of the Westbury Music and Arts Festival committee explained that although the opening ceremony was taking place in the evening, the festival had already been opened in Dilton Marsh Primary School and Westbury Junior School during the day. “We like to involve local children and choose different schools each year,” he explained. “We took Clown Bert with us to entertain the children and they loved it.”
