The GAP Festival 2020  is CANCELLED

Please scroll down for a message from the Trustees of the Gap Festival

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Church and State: Uneasy bedfellows?
Saturday 20 June 6-7pm, St Thomas of Canterbury Church, Goring
Sadly, this event, part of the 2020 Becket programme from St Thomas of Canterbury Church, is not going ahead as planned but there is every intention to hold it when possible in the future. 

"Onward! The GAP will OPEN again - for sure"

This is the message of encouragement our patron Gyles Brandreth has sent us in these difficult times.  We concur and will bring the Festival back when we can.

On his website, Gyles has some useful and amusing suggestions to get us through the current situation.  As an alternative to singing “Happy Birthday” twice, he has chosen some lovely poems that take 20 seconds to read or recite while washing our hands.  You will find one of them below.

​We are sure you will enjoy other things on his site including tales from Dame Judi Dench, Seven Secrets of Successful Self Isolation and suggestions about how to learn a poem a week.  He says if you learn just two lines a day, in a week you can learn a complete sonnet.   In the absence of the poetry trail which was to be a feature of this year’s Festival, we could all start learning our own collection of favourite poems and perhaps have a group recitation next summer.    Go to www.gylesbrandreth.net where you will find his ideas on his BLOG page.

‘Happy The Man’ by John Dryden (1631-1700)

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Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

The GAP Festival 2020 - CANCELLED

The Trustees regret to announce the cancellation of this year's GAP Festival
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​Following the unprecedented and escalating level of concern about the risk of spreading the COVID-19 virus, especially at indoor public gatherings, the Festival Trustees have decided to cancel the event in the interests of public health.

Obviously, no-one knows when all this is going to end and whether the pandemic will peak in Britain before, during or after June. What we can assume, however, is that June will not be clear of the problem and so we cannot say at this stage when we may be able to hold the Festival in the future.  

For Goring and Streatley residents who receive the Goring Gap News, the centre four pages of the March edition are devoted to the launch of the Festival programme including where and how to buy tickets. This information is now out of date as the GGN went to press before the decision was made.

The Trustees are extremely grateful for the support that all the volunteers, sponsors and donors have given to the Festival over the past 12 months during its planning stage and we look forward to the time when we may be able to send out a more positive message.  In the meantime, any further news about the Festival will be posted on this website and through Genie, GGN and social media.

​The Festival Trustees
​March 2020

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