For the record, I wasn't at Sidmouth in 2005, nor (I don't think) was Ian Anderson. It clashed with WOMAD that year. The original idea had been to rest Sidmouth for a year (as had happened several years earlier at Beverley in the face of a management changeover) because Steve Heap's withdrawal left only a bare year to organise the next one and past experience showed that it took 18 months.

For some reason, the details of which I am unaware, some people decided to take the tremendous risk of steaming ahead anyway and put on something called a "folk week" the following year. One incident during it which I did get to hear about was that Bellowhead's then manager was insulted outrageously in the Ham green room by someone who refused to "take instructions from a woman".