I imagine every community must have its share of hard-core moaners and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few in Ludlow who think there are disadvantages in living in a town which functions as a kind of open air museum – a medieval street grid, some half a mile square, of well-preserved historic dwellings and public buildings, headed by a near perfect perpendicular church and a Norman castle (with its own C12^th circular chapel). These are the people who object to the May Fair (a centuries’ old tradition) taking over the town centre for 3 days (and making it smell strongly of un-nutritious hamburgers), or to the rock concert that is held in the castle at the end of the summer festival – small-minded people who do not recognise that the less erudite, ordinary Ludlovians have as much right to a little community fun as those of us who go to see obscure French films or string quartets in the Assembly Rooms.

Even when the castle is opened up, as it often is, for diverse festivals and events, and the town’s streets are choked with charabancs, it’s good to know that the town’s delights are being more widely shared. For the bright, blue-sky weekend just past, Ludlow hosted its 15^th Ludlow Food Festival – a Foodies’ nirvana, reflecting the wonderful revival of interest in traditional English food and drink – ales, goats’ cheeses, muttons, ciders, smoked ducks’ breasts – the diversity on offer was astonishing .

Of course, there had to be an element of competition, too, with local brewers, bakers, butchers and chefs vying for accolades. One frankly unscientific competition was hosted by Mr Graham (Floyd) Wilson-Lloyd, Ludlow’s ubiquitous landlord, former town mayor and operator of the Church Inn and the Charlton Arms. Seventeen beers and ales had been submitted by local pubs (not, on the whole, the crummy ones owned by Pub-Cos), and judging them fell to exhibitor and brewing maestro Alex Barlow, who was exhibiting in his ALL Beer stand to promote his excellent new ALLBeer Guide to ales & beers. As often happens in Ludlow events, there had been some confusion, and the poor chap hadn’t been told there were to be winners and losers. He arrived to be handed what he (perhaps unfortunately) described as a poisoned chalice, though, having drunk from it, he did survive – only just. For with so many variables (the disparate skills of the cellarmen at the various submitting pubs) to cloud his judgment, it wasn’t surprising that in his preliminary blind tasting he rejected some of the Ludlow ale-drinking community’s firm favourites (including mine – Hobson’s Best) and provoked some rowdy booing. A memorable commentary and condensed history of Britain’s relationship with ale was provided by Sarge, the cellarman from the Church Inn. Sarge is a published poet, chronicler of the town’s lore, and a man of surprisingly diverse erudition who can talk with equal fervour about Bach, Glenn Gould or Django Rheinhart, and who summarised the reaction of the audience as pisspotical. He had by then plied them with pints of Ludlow Gold (the most local of ales) as he explained how the relationship between the Saxon Hengist and Horsa (cunning because they were ‘foreign’) and the British King Vortigern hinged on the ale-swilling characteristics of his people. I didn’t know that. But in the end, the beer judged the best was the best, with temporal and geographic relevance, Darwin’s Origin, by the Salopian Brewery – a real joy of a bitter, and on offer at the Unicorn.

Another arena – the whole town, in fact – was occupied by the Ludlow Sausage Trail. No doubt the hard-wired moaners objected to the whole town reeking of Sausage, which the five or six competing sausage makers offered from pitches dotted about the town. The local and visiting punters formed long queues at each, democratically selecting the tastiest sausage and providing a sound endorsement for the winner to shout about for the year to come. I don’t participate as a voter, for I am a firm and faithful fan of the Francis sausage, and don’t want to be confused by too much choice.

As an inhabitant of the town, I was only too happy to see it overun with sausage-munchers from evry corner of the land, and I look forward to seeing them all again next year, and to hell with moaners.

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