Devonport Pioneers

By Tess Wilmot
In ten weeks time, on Wednesday 23^rd October, the tenth annual All Ways Apples Festival will take place. So, this week we are celebrating the very FIRST festival which took place in 2010! What an amazing collaboration and what a fabulous legacy we have built together since this inaugural event which was planned and delivered in just six weeks!

Key players in making the first festival happen were Wendy Hart who worked for Sovereign Housing at that time, Claire Bower who worked for Routeways, plus Ian Smith and myself. Devonport Guildhall was the venue and had just re-opened after major refurbishment. Sovereign Housing kindly paid the Hall Hire fee and Stepping Stones to Nature (SS2N) funded the coordination time. Green Ark Children’s Centrehad some funding for cookery demonstrations and so joined us with Food is Fun CIC in the Mayor’s Parlour.

David Bouch from Cotehelebrought their apple press to make juice and the day before we harvested apples from the Brickfields. The amazing ‘Devonport’ banner was designed by Anne Marie Culhane and made help from lots of local people. The banner has been a centre piece of the All Ways Apples Festival ever since.
Over 80 people attended the 2010 event, many of them local families. Nowadays, the Festival attracts 400+ people with families still being the backbone of the participants. We are delighted that many of the 2010 ‘pioneers’ still return every year. Some of these people took part originally as pre-school age children and are now teenagers!

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