Another summer gone, another Festival over, another 37 nights spent in the company of folk musicians and local as well as international audiences in the downstairs lounge of the Royal Oak. It always looks like a Ben Nevis to climb at the start – five weeks and a day. Phew. And then it flies by just like that nightly fly pass of the Tattoo….

Yes, it has its disadvantages to be stuck at the Oak for an entire summer, but most of it, oddly enough, is fun. Hey, I get to hear in the range of 750 songs and tunes, I get to see 37 different stage presentations, and I get 37 different audiences (mostly) enjoying themselves, some returning for quite a few nights as soon as they’ve discovered that Festival Folk at the Oak offers ‘the real thing’.

Doing five weeks in a row, you get a sense of an ongoing narrative, songs seem to correspond, a conversation seems to unfold. It’s a ‘summer school’ alright. There are the tributes being paid. By the headline and the support artistes. Like, when Lindsay Porteous remembers a joint workshop with Mike Seeger at the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games a few years back and plays a tune he picked up from Mike there. Or when Tim O’Leary reminds us of the great, late Sliabh Luachra fiddler Seamus Creagh who died earlier this year. A pleasure to hear Stevie Lawrence sing – an even greater pleasure to hear him sing Lyle Lovett’s ‘If I had a Boat’ which he’d first heard years ago from the much missed Iain MacKintosh. Or Sara Grey reminding us of the fine songwriting qualities of the late Utah Phillips. Geordie McIntyre paying tribute to Ireland’s Frank Harte. Eddie Walker spoke for many a guitarist when he mourned the demise of Les Paul. And, given the way he was influenced by him, there was a heartfelt rendering of some of Jim Reid’s songs by Jim Malcolm – in fact, we dedicated that whole particular gig to the memory of that great Dundonian.

Then there are the songs. Some turn up again and again. ‘Westlin’ Winds’, of course – sure, it’s actual title is ‘Song Composed in August’ – how appropriate. The Duplets gave a harp-accompanied rendering; Ian Bruce’s unaccompanied belter of an interpretation stopped the drinkers in the Cowgate in their tracks – gee, that voice carries, muttered an American visitor. Stairheid Gossip, the Linties and Gill Bowman – all fine versions of one of Burns’s finest compositions… It being the 250^th anniversary of Burn’s birth, the Burns songbook was very present throughout the Festival. Gillian MacDonald, like Ian Bruce and Jim Malcolm and others involved in Dr Fred Freeman’s Linn-Project that recorded all the songs, gave samples of Burns you don’t hear everyday.

If proof was needed that Bluegrass and Old Time music are perennial audience favourites, well, the packed nights for Home Made Jam, the Homecoming String Band (what a pleasure!) and Stonecoal Creek and the spontaneous outbreak of smiley faces and rapturous applause provided plenty of it. And Sara Grey and Kieron Means transported us straight to a shady porch in North Carolina or Tennessee – only the Moonshine was missing.

I was also quite taken with Tony Cox’s guitar playing. At his residency out at the Acoustic Music Centre the multiple recipient of the South African Music Prize played to underwhelming audiences, often in single figures (despite a four-star review by Rob Adams in the Herald). I think he enjoyed playing to a reasonably full house at the Oak – and we certainly cherished the company of this Zimbabwean-born South African guitar picker.

A special mention for their stage savvy has to go to Doghouse Roses. Iona MacDonald and Paul Tasker played the first half to a fine, perfectly formed, two-thirds of a house. And thus we started into the second half. Three songs into the half, a group of a dozen people arrived and packed the place out. Not only did they lift the atmosphere from pleasant to enthusiastic, they also got us all a wee extension of the performance. Paul and Iona had the good sense of adding two or three songs to the set, seeing that the latecomers deserved a ‘full’ second half, and everyone was unco happy at the end.

Some acts and nights had a strong local support, but every night we had this great mixture of visitors from near and far, folk from Japan to Alaska, from all over Europe and all parts of the UK and Ireland. Over a thousand punters for Festival Folk at the Oak. And that despite our week one which was not covered by the Fringe programme, because we were a tad too early out of the starting block. The result was a bit oif a rollercoaster as far as audience figures in that first week were concerned. Claire Mann and Aaron Jones did really well, and so did fine songwriter and singer Gareth Davies-Jones who has built a good following over the past few years with his excellently crafted songs and his winning way of performing them.

Record attendance this year was for Stairheid Gossip, when the always helpful staff at the Oak had over-enthusiastically sold all thirty tickets in advance – and the Fringe box office another ten. But, lo and behold, somehow they all fitted in… Strong local turn-out also for the record launch of Ian Main and Andrew Lyons, aptly (at least for this blog) entitled ‘After the Festival’. But the Festival was of course not over before a few more thirsts were quenched in the Oak – the ‘summer school’ is only over when the …. Policeman sings!!