HUll Shanty festival certainly was not killed Ray!!!

There was a few problems agreed; but that did not detract from us all having a damn good time. The organizers did not know the state of funding until very late on and this caused them no small problems.

I and the rest of Owd Chyvers was booked to sing there so I can speak with a certain amount of authority on this subject as I was there for the whole two day and one night events.

People need to keep in mind some of the more positive parts of the festival.

Friday night in The White hart was at its usual high standard with many guests and non guests making the rafters roar with Shanty jack as MC.

Saturday was very busy agreed, with a projected 80, 000 people around the Marina.
The traffic control around Castle Street was a pain for some but this had to happen for the safety of all having to cross a busy arterial road.

Regarding publicity a bit thin on the ground admittedly but what was different to other years? .

Saturday morning BBC Radio Humberside gave great coverage to all the events. We and other booked artists did spots on that station as well as interviews.

Excellent programmes and running orders for the maritime were available free to everyone at the Hospital radio stage.

The area back of main stage was noisy but there was a fair sized audience who stayed, listened and enjoyed to what was on offer.

All the venues were well attended, Barge Amy Howsen, Ruscadors,, Green bricks and Minerva was the indoor locations and again we played most of those on the both days and did not have any problems .John Connolly did tell me the Green bricks was hard work!!!

Sunday was a much quieter day with a great response on the open air stage and all venues. We finished our session at 5.00pm but some carried on until seven o'clock. Even the weather stayed reasonable!

All people I talked to; performers, visitors and Hull people all said what a great weekend it was...

Oh just a bit on the plastic glasses, this has been common practice at busy times in Hull pubs for a couple of years now. Even though I like me drink out of a glass I can see the reasoning behind the use of poycarbonate glasses. If you have seen some one glassed in the face- as I have seen – you know that keeping glass out of the way is a small price to pay.

This is an article from The Hull Mail:

Dozens of serious eye injuries have been prevented since the introduction of plastic glasses, the Mail can reveal.

Polycarbonate glasses were rolled out in Hull in May 2008 when eye surgeons were treating 20 glass attack victims a year.

But since the campaign launch, led by Humberside Police and NHS Hull, not one person has needed eye surgery as the result of a glassing.

The campaign has saved the primary care trust more than £7.2 million a year in surgery.

Each eye operation costs the health service and taxpayer £184,000.

Paul Laing, public health lead from NHS Hull, said: "This project has had a massive impact on reducing alcohol-related harm in Hull.

"It has resulted in savings to the NHS of approximately £7.2 million over the two years this has been in force through the reduction in ophthalmic operations.

"Before 2008 one of our eye surgeons was the busiest in the country, performing 20 operations a year for glass attack victims alone.

"But these operations have been eliminated and since May 2008 the department has had no admissions from this type of attack.

"Glassing attacks do still happen and still need to be reduced, however, from a health perspective, these incidents have not resulted in significant eye injuries leading to surgery."