I take it the idea is to put pressure on the council and the local traders to pay if they want to keep the festival, and get all that lovely lolly it brings in.

I hope it works. There is something special about Sidmouth, the way it brings together all kinds of elements you find in other festivals. It's a combination you just don't get elsewhere.

It'll be really shame if we lose it. It'd good to have things that continue, and that you feel will continue after you are gone. Here is a song I wrote about Sidmouth a few years ago:

The sun and the cliffs and the sea and the shingle,
The jingle of bells, and the beating of feet.
The ringing of voices that join in a chorus,
The cry of the seagulls, the shout in the street.
I dreamed of Sidmouth in black December,
And woke and knew where I longed to be.
There's so many summers now, I can't remember,
I've gone there to Sidmouth, to dance by the sea.

The dancing at night, and the quiet in the morning,
The friends whom you meet once again, once a year,
The sights that surprise you, the sounds that amaze you,
Can wake you and shake you, can move you to tears.
I dreamed of Sidmouth in black December,
And woke and knew where I longed to be.
There's so many summers now, I can't remember,
I've gone there to Sidmouth, to dance by the sea.

The dancing goes on, and the music gets louder,
But from high on a hill it is distant and faint,
As you look through the leaves to the dancers below you,
As they move through their motions so solemn and quaint.
I dreamed of Sidmouth in black December,
And woke and knew where I longed to be.
There's so many summers now, I can't remember,
I've gone there to Sidmouth, to dance by the sea.

"Come back once too often, and you'll come back for ever"
Well, perhaps those are true words, in more ways than one,
And the ghosts of the dancers who came here before you
Still join in the dance every summer that comes.
I dreamed of Sidmouth in black December,
And woke and knew where I longed to be.
There's so many summers now, I can't remember,
I've gone there to Sidmouth, to dance by the sea.