Town Crier and Escort of Frome, Mike and Angie Bishop, are proudly hosting their thirteenth annual town crier festival in Frome on Saturday 15th June, 10.45 am to 3.00pm, outside of the library.
This year’s festival is the largest Town Crier festival held anywhere in Britain, for the third year running. This year, Frome will be welcoming 25 town criers from all over England and Wales, with at least four making their debut to the town.
Each crier will perform two cries, the first being their Home Town Cry, telling people why you should visit their town, and the second cry is a news item of the first four months of this year. Mike says he has broken with tradition this year. All the criers have had to submit their news cries, which Mike has then re-typed and all criers will choose from a number, someone else’s cry. At the end, the best crier will be chosen by three judges. There will be trophies for 1st, 2nd and 3rd, as well as Best Dressed Crier, Escort and Couple.
The overall champion, a combination of cry and dress, will be awarded the newly-named Anton Ljubljanovic memorial trophy. Mike says this has been so named as he lost his much-loved father-in-law on this date last year, just one day before the 2018 festival. He said, “Anton was loved and respected by all Criers and Escorts as he had been in attendance for many years.”