A WATERING can bugle heralded the start of dawn, as the Swindon Festival of Literature got off to a sunny start.

More than 100 people descended on Lawn Woods for the annual Dawn Chorus event. They were treated to fire dancing, storytelling, music and stunning views of a blood orange sun as it rose over Swindon.

Jacob Hirsch-Holland opened the event by blowing through the rusty watering can, accompanied by bagpiper Danny Sturgeon.

“There is one watering can from the farm that we use every year. On the Sunday, the day before this gig, we’re always looking around the farm saying, ‘Where is the watering can?’” said Jacob. “This is the first time we’ve used a different one. I tried it yesterday and it worked, so I thought we’d go for a slightly different tone.”

The professional circus performer and son of literature festival founder Matt Holland added: “I got a bit of a head rush. I’m jetlagged and I’ve got a badly blocked ear. It’s a smaller watering can with a smaller mouthpiece, so it’s got a slightly higher pressure. At about 16 seconds in I started to get a bit dizzy.”

Now in its 25th year, the Dawn Chorus event has been a staple of the Swindon Festival of Literature for decades.

Festival founder Matt Holland, tenant at Lower Shaw Farm, said: “We were nervous, naïve novices when we started. I’d been going to festivals for one reason or another and seen that there was a format. The opening would be in a nice hotel with cocktails and Michael Palin talking about his travels and then everybody went home. I’d go to another festival and it would be similar.

“I immediately sensed that we needed to do it a little bit differently in Swindon, because otherwise it might not work. I was sitting chatting to friends and said why don’t we do something outside. We started in May, so we thought why not sunrise.

“We tried it and we did it in Town Gardens. 120 people came, which was more than came to any event. The rest as they say is history.

“There are people who come to this and nothing else. Nothing wrong with that. There are people who tell me they come to this even when it’s raining, because when they get home it makes a cup of tea taste better.

“I’m as puzzled as I am pleased that people are up at this time of day on a Bank Holiday, when they could have a lie in. And they do it rain or shine.”

Families enjoyed the first light of dawn, watching fire dancers, storyteller Cat Weatherill and Swindon Community Choir. A maypole dance kept children entertained and Lower Shaw Farm’s cockerel Giuseppe caught the hungry eyes of family dogs.

Patricia Langton, 70, who had come up from London to join the Dawn Chorus with her Swindon friend, said: “I love it. It’s beautiful, totally magical.”

Rebecca Bates, 33, of Old Town, said: “We’ve been coming for about five years. I always feel so energised afterwards. It’s just really special and there’s such a lovely atmosphere.” Lad Sonny Bates, four, enjoyed taking part in the maypole dance, laughing: “It felt like I was swimming over the grass.”

Gorse Hill’s Cheryl Heyne, 63, comes back to the Dawn Chorus event every year: “It makes you feel alive.”

Swindon Festival of Literature begins today, with the Freedom Run at Lydiard Park, talk by Olympic athletics ace Jo Pavey and story walk by international wordsmith Cat Weatherill among the delights on offer.

Founder Matt Holland said the festival was aimed at everybody, rather than the typical literature festival crowd: “There were doubters when I mooted the idea of having a festival. One of them, a senior person in the council, said: ‘I admire your enthusiasm, young man. But I think you’ll find literature’s too long a word for Swindon. It won’t work.’

“It’s been proved completely wrong. Five years after he said that, I was buying lager at an off-licence in Rodbourne and two people came up to me with scars and tattoos and said to me, ‘You’re the literature bloke, aren’t you? We just want to tell you that we come to one of your things and all you do is talk about sex and death, life and relationships, like we do down at the pub. Keep it up.’

“Good writing, good conversation, good discussion, is for everyone. Lovers do it in bed, people do it in hotels, students do it at university. It is something common to all human beings.”

For a full list of festival events, visit: www.swindonfestivalofliterature.co.uk.