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A Lanarkshire music festival that was created in response to bad publicity about a village and named after a local icon.
The little-known Gentle Giant Music Festival is an annual celebration of local music talent, held in the village of Forth (one of Lanarkshire’s former mining communities), on a Saturday in the middle of May. The event takes place across four venues, usually starting at 12 Noon and finishing late in the evening.
The name of the festival refers to George Gracie, who was Scotland’s Tallest Man and was briefly listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the UK’s tallest. His size was caused by a brain tumour in his pituitary gland. Despite being 7 feet and 3 inches in height, he lived in a small cottage outside the village, just off the trunk road between Lanark and Whitburn. He also weighed 28 stone and wore size 18 shoes.
As a means of making a living, George often exhibited himself at circus events and fairgrounds, where he allowed people to come and stare at him as they made donations and small contributions to his welfare. Despite being the subject of curious onlookers who would occasionally make uncomfortable comments to him, he was described as a warm and friendly person with a lot of patience, hence why he was nicknamed “The Gentle Giant.”
George later had mobility issues due to his size. He passed away in 1993 after suffering from cancer, at the age of 53.
The concept for a music festival named after “The Gentle Giant” came many years after his passing as a result of a negative article written about the village of Forth by travel writer Tim Moore, who made a reference to the late George within his critical comments about the community.
In Moore’s book, he described the village as something of a backwater where nothing ever happened. The writer also made a disparaging comment about the man who was considered a hero among residents. He wrote, “It was a town laid out without love and built without care. ‘Welcome to Forth’ read the banner my mind slung across the vista. ‘We live here so you don’t have to.’ The windswept streets of Scotland’s strangest place were naturally enough roamed by a race of giants. Barbed wire was strung right around the roofs of lock-up garages, perhaps the legacy of unusually determined burglars or perhaps of George Gracie on the rampage.”
Moore also wrote, “The high street was a long, grey straggle of grimness, all grubby second-hand car dealerships and takeaways. Only the tanning salon seemed to be thriving.” This was quite an inaccuracy. Forth has never had a tanning salon nor second-hand car dealerships. Also, far from being grey, the village has won accolades (on multiple occasions) for its gardens and floral displays, including an award from Beautiful Scotland. It also has one of Lanarkshire’s most extensive Christmas-light displays each year, going along the entire length of the Main Street (over a mile long) between the speed limit signs at either end of the village. Forth is also surrounded by forests, woodland nature walks and proudly commemorates its history of mining and the iron ore industry in the neighbouring community of Wilsontown.
Moore also stated that the village’s Royal British Legion club had shut down. This too was false information because it has never closed. The club is (and has always been) one of the community’s main venues for parties and events.
As an attempt to “right the wrong,” a group of the village’s musicians and music fans staged what was supposed to be a “one off” event in 2012. However, due its success, the festival has been held every year since then (except during the Covid lockdown period).
The logo used for the festival features a silhouette, created from an historical photo that showed a kilted George Gracie with his leg raised and stretched over the bonnet of a car.
Each of the four venues used for the event are dedicated to musicians and bands who perform with a particular music style and genre. The venues used are The Inn’s (for solo musicians), the Royal British Legion (for rock bands), The Masonic Hall (for rock and blues bands) and The Mason’s Lounge (for folk musicians, country musicians and duets).
On May 18th 2024, no fewer than nineteen local or Scottish bands, duets and solo musicians performed in the village. Even though important semi-final football matches were on TV and the weather was so glorious as to tempt people into beer gardens or hold barbecues at home, each of the venues swelled with music fans who watched and listened intently to the performers, as well as some who danced and sang to familiar songs. Shire Radio was also there to capture snapshots of each performance and put the pictures on its social media pages and YouTube.
Bands and artists who performed in 2024 included:
The Neopolitan
The John Reilly Connection
West End Groove
The Tism
Snake Skin Shoe Review
Innes & Pams
Willie Mac
Cairdies Brig
Paul Conkie
Frank & Fiona Rae
Ornum
Mixed Signals
Bueller
Sniper Ally
The Nomads
Ben Inglis
Sammy
Jordan Carson
Graham Godsell
We look forward to being there again in 2025.
For more information about the event go to www.facebook.com/GentleGiantMusicFestival.
Written by A.G.G. and D.W (05/09/24)
Written by: admin
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