WYLAM WINTER TALES 2025
Dear Friends and Supporters, a warm welcome to our 2025 website for what will be our 10th annual celebration of arts events and activities to brighten up those doldrum days before Spring arrives again. This year we’ll have a wonderful mix of creativity including film, music, puppets, panels and story telling - all based here in our local village. As well as marking ten years of the Festival, we’ll also be joining national “Railway200” celebrations marking 200 years since the birth of the modern railway and presenting some newly commissioned songs, stories and artwork. For full details of all our events please read on. We look forward to welcoming you to our Festival in 2025.
OUR 2025 “LIGHT THROUGH THE ARTS” PROGRAMME
INDIGO MOON THEATRE PRESENTS: JUNGLE BOOK
Saturday 1st February, Wylam Institute
Doors: 2.00pm Show Starts: 2.30pm
BOO HEWERDINE & YVONNE LYON : THINGS FOUND IN BOOKS
Saturday 1st February, Wylam Institute
Doors & Bar 7.30pm Show Starts: 8.00pm
WINTER TALES CHOIR SUNDAY : IL CAPPELLO ROSSO
Sunday 2nd February, St Oswin’s Church
Doors & Cafe 2pm & Show Starts 2.30pm
WHEN THE MORNING STARS SANG : HUGH LUPTON & SARAH MOODY
Sunday 2nd February, St Oswin’s Church
Doors & Bar: 6.00pm Show Starts 6.30pm
THE BOOKSELLERS FAVOURITE : A PASSION FOR BOOKS
Tuesday 4th February, Wylam Library
Doors & Bar: 7.00pm Event Starts 7.30pm
IRON & STEAM (FILM SCREENING + TALK)
Wednesday 5th February, Wylam Institute
Doors & Bar: 7.00pm, Screening & Talk Starts 7.30pm
WINTER TALES FOLK: JOHNNY CAMPBELL & THE GRACE SMITH TRIO
Thursday 6th February, Wylam First School Hall
Doors & Bar: 7.00pm Show Starts 7.30pm
ROSE ROOM RETURNS!
Friday 7th February, Wylam Institute
Doors & Bar: 7.00pm Show Starts 8.00pm
WATER OF TYNE : THE ART & SCIENCE OF A RIVER
Saturday 8th February, Wylam Institute
Doors & Cafe: 9.30am, Event Starts 10.00am
RAILWAY 200 : A WYLAM CELEBRATION
Saturday 8th February, Wylam Methodist Church
Doors & Cafe: 7.00pm, Show Starts 7.30pm
For our online offering “Cosy Night In 2021”, we invited people who live in or are connected to Wylam to tell us a short story - A Wylam Tiny Tale - in 50 words or less from their experiences during 2020. We had a fantastic response with submissions from young and old. You can read and enjoy all the Tales here. Thank you to all who contributed.
Cafe
No festival is complete without a resident Cafe and ours is no exception. At all of our events (except workshops and pub/farm cafe venues) we will have the Winter Tales Cafe up and running to serve you a warm welcome under our winter gazebo and fairy lights.
Very reasonably priced, there will be a warm drink to get your mitts around with coffee, tea, hot chocolate, juices and snacks supplied by Traidcraft and other fair trade suppliers. Choose your mug for the night and settle in for some great entertainment.
About
It’s not entirely irrelevant that one of us swims in the Tyne every month of the year, or that that the others might be tempted to get in during a heatwave in July.
But aside from that…..it started at a local hostelry in Wylam. Doesn’t it always ! We got to chatting and discovered that we all believe in the power of the arts to transform perspectives, enrich lives and bring us out of ourselves. Over the course of several beverages we started to wonder about the seasons and asked ourselves why nothing in particular seems to happen in the depths of winter to help draw us together. Why, when our forebears used to gather round the fireside to share stories and sing songs, do we no longer gather together to share our stories and encourage each other to be creative. Why is it that the sparkly lights all disappear on January 2nd? Why when people need it the most do we not have a bit of light and creativity to help us bridge the gap ’til Spring when all things awaken once again? Soon the vision for a community Arts Festival in late January/early February, based in our local village came to life.
And so with a passion to bring a sense of shared community and celebration, Wylam Winter Tales Festival continues. Hoping to be the spark to ignite your imagination we have a range of arts events to help brighten things up at the darkest time of the year. This year from Saturday 1st February to Saturday 8th February 2025 we hope to help to see you through these doldrum days after New Year and the lull before the Spring. Please come along. Without you - our audience - it won’t be half as good !
Annie, David, Gareth, & Simon (Volunteer Festival Directors)
Wylam Winter Tales Festival is a non-profit making voluntary organisation reliant upon grant funding, ticket sales and donations.
Past
Memory
To celebrate our village Wylam Winter Tales Festival is running an ongoing community heritage project called ‘Wylam Way Collective Memory’. We’re collecting as yet unknown memories from local people about the heritage and history of the village and will turn them into art that our wider community can be inspired by and enjoy. The aim is to bring a fresh narrative about our past and a renewed sense of pride and understanding about our Tyne Valley heritage.
More details will be posted here as the project develops. In the meantime if you have any memories you’d like to share with us then please email wylamwintertales@gmail.com
FONT
As part of our "QUIRKY WORDY WORKSHOP" kids and parent of Wylam created the WWT typeface. We worked hard on the most wonderful and imaginative letters. It is now available to download. Enjoy and have fun! Please note: WWT typeface is for private use only. It is a trademark of Wylam Winter Tales and should NOT be used for commercial purposes.
Wylam Winter Tales Festival is a non-profit making voluntary organisation reliant upon grant funding, ticket sales and donations.
Contact
Online Booking
All our tickets are now sold online via Eventbrite. We no longer provide paper tickets. If tickets remain unsold we may have a limited number on sale at each of the events - but we cannot guarantee entry. Please check via the bookings links on our website which will direct you to Eventbrite where the latest availability will be shown. All our published prices exclude booking fees charged by Eventbrite unless otherwise stated.
Cancellation & Refunds
Sorry - we can only offer refunds if an event is cancelled. Wylam Winter Tales runs at a time of year when bad weather can have an impact on events. When you buy your ticket you do so knowing that our policy is that if the performer can make it to the venue and our Festival team can make it to the venue, then the event will go ahead. We will take all possible measures to make sure events continue safely for all. In the unfortunate event we have to make a last resort cancellation then we will make all attempts via our website and social media pages to notify audiences that the event is off. We will offer refunds (in the event of cancellation only) via Eventbrite. Thank you for your support.
Disabled access
Most of our venues are wheelchair accessible. Please let us know in advance if you are a wheelchair user or if a disability means that you require additional help, so that we can make arrangements. We are happy to allocate a free ticket to carers or helpers. Please contact us on wylamwintertales@gmail.com
Children Policy
Whilst all of our events are suitable for children of middle school age and upwards, some events may not be appropriate for younger children. Please ask if you’re not sure. Whilst we sincerely hope that all our audiences will enjoy the festival safely and responsibly we would respectfully point out that people attend our events at their own risk and that at every event, children are the sole responsibility of their parents/guardians.
Seating at events
None of our venues have fixed, numbered seating, so seats cannot be booked in advance. Seating position is on a first come first served basis but as all our events are fully seated there will be a seat for everyone.
Volunteers wanted
Without volunteer support, Wylam Winter Tales Festival events would not be happening. That's a fact! So if you fancy getting waist deep in some great arts events and helping our audiences to keep a smile on their face then please contact us at wylamwintertales@gmail.com
Special thanks for making our Festival possible goes to:
Tyne Valley Community Rail Partnership
We are grateful for the generous support of Tyne Valley Solar & Wind as sponsors of Wylam Winter Tales 2024.
Festival Directors
Annie Ball, David Thomas, Gareth Davies-Jones, Simon Hackett
Festival Design
We were delighted that Wylam Winter Tales Festival was able to partner with Great Northumberland and Northumberland County Council to provide some free festival events as part of the GREAT NORTHUMBERLAND WINTER FESTIVAL in 2020/21.
