MY Bad Pennies and I are off to Saltburn Festival this weekend, to join a guest-list that includes Vin Garbutt, Nancy Kerr and James Fagan, John Tams, Chis While and Julie Matthews, Last Night's Fun, John Wright, Sara Grey and the festival's answer to Tin Tin and Snowy, the fabulous Nebula!

Officially it's the festival's tenth year of great music, dance and song, attracting performers and audiences from all over the world.

But many of us will recall it's predecessor, Redcar Folk Festival, that ran so successfully from the early 1970s, and was indeed the first such event that I ever attended, guitar in hand and ears wide open.

Redcar also acted as a template for many other later additions to the UK festival circuit, being a combination of high-class concerts, dance displays, ceilidhs and singarounds, going on almost around the clock over the weekend.

That winning formula has continued to make Saltburn a national institution among UK folk fans.

A call to John Taylor at 01287-622623 will secure you a place in the thick of it, but you'd better be quick.

Meanwhile, sorry to report that Alistair Anderson's weekly folk show on Radio Newcastle has bitten the dust, courtesy of a new station manager.

Listeners' displeasure even made a national splash on Radio 4's Feedback programme, but to no avail.

Is the BBC deserting folk?

More on this next week. Don't forget local lad Bob Fox's gig at Hartlepool's Studio tonight, just to get you in the mood for a weekend of folk, fun and fish and chips at Saltburn-by-the-Sea.