A face from the crowd at the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival 2009

Today I went on a day trip to Dorset for the last day of the Tollpuddle Martyrs Festival.  It is a long way to go for a day (nearly three hours each way on the coach) but plenty of people came from even further away and it was a good day out even if it did require getting up before 8:00am on a Sunday.I had never been before and didn’t know quite what to expect so it was all quite overwhelming.  No doubt I will write more tomorrow, and inflict some of my photos on this blog – I took over 200 and have been going through them before uploading about 40 to Flickr.  I even got some good use out of that 70-300mm telephoto lense.  Sorting through all those photos took a bit of time tonight, so I’ll leave my thoughts on the event until tomorrow.

Horsham Labour Party was well represented, with the Chair, Secretary, Campaign Organiser and PPC all there – a shame we didn’t have a banner to march with.  Crawley CLP has a banner, but since (as far as I know) I was the only person there from Crawley CLP it would have been a bit difficult to carry.

It was my first time, but I don’t think it will be my last.  It is a great spectacle and the whole place is suffused with an almost tanglible spirit of brotherhood.  I can thoroughly recommend it: go for the photo opportunities but stay for the speeches by Tony Benn and Brendan Barber.