Festival first can help town to ghost into gap in Halloween market

PUBS and businesses are joining forces to make sure Leek's first Halloween Festival is a success.

The event gets under way in the Market Place at 2pm on Saturday.

It includes a pumpkin parade with prizes for fancy dress, story telling in the library, a minibus tour of the mysterious landscape of Leek, a number of ghost walks, psychic research and street dancers, as well as a host of other events being held in pubs, shops and restaurants.

Bill Cawley runs the 'Shriek in Leek' Ghost Walk and had the idea of a Halloween Festival after last year's celebrations.

With Julie Lovatt, owner of the Coffee Clique, he has been researching other festivals around the world and has found that most are a big success.

The French town of Limoges now attracts 30,000 people and in America, pumpkin parades are so popular many now have more than 300 different varieties.

He said: "With any event in the centre, Christmas or Halloween, we hope to recapture the town for ordinary people and that's one of the reasons for doing this."

Bill has organised the 90-minute ghost walks around the town for the last four years.

He said: "I really enjoy it and the walks get more and more popular every year, bringing families together.

"Over the years we would like to get more people involved. Local businesses and pubs are really keen to be involved and there's no reason that in years to come, we can't be as big as other Halloween festivals around."

Julie decided to get involved with Bill to launch the festival because there was nothing comparable anywhere else in England.

And the pair want to encourage people from other towns to join the celebrations.

Julie said: "We want to turn Halloween into a town event and get away from the bad image of trick or treat.

"Because Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, we want to try and turn it into a sort of festival. We want to start off with something small and build on it each year."

Pubs and clubs are all making an effort to join in with the festival celebrations.

The Cat @ the Town House, on St Edwards Street, is putting on a special menu in honour of the event, which will feature dishes such as pumpkin and apple soup and spiced devil kidneys.

Diane Parr, daytime supervisor at the venue, said: "The festival is a good idea. It gets people out and gives them something interesting to do."

The Swan is holding a masquerade ball on Saturday night and encourages everyone to dress for the occasion.

Stanley's Bar will be opening the new upstairs area and will be splitting the night into 'heaven and hell'. There will be prizes for the best fancy dress outfits and punishments for those who dress in Halloween attire. The night starts at 7pm.