As blustery winds howl round your door, the rain rattles against the windows, what better way to lift your spirits and make the gas fire seem even toastier than the chance to enjoy some of the highlights from this year’s Shrewsbury Folk festival? Those dedicated and down right decent people in their office have come up with the wizard idea of populating their essential YouTube channel, nay stacking it, with great music from 2024, the likes of…Elkie Brooks, Le Vent Du Nord, Manran (above,) Dream In Colours, El Pony Piscador, Kathryn Tickell & The Darkening, Peatbog Faeries, Mary Gauthier, Joshua Burnell, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Pentangle and loads more. As always you can also dive into their archive for names like Oyster Band, Joachim Cooder, Steeleye Span, Jim Moray, Andy Fairweather Lowe, pick your own roosty legend.

In fact the Spiral Earth newsdesk has calculated that there’s months worth of in concert footage to keep you going through the day and night time hours, sleep is of course optional – who cares about going to work? What’s more it is all for free – though it’d be nice to make a small donation to keep this wonderful service ticking over. Oh and of course we should point out, it’s only the artists who give permission for their performance to be streamed, so no sulking if your fave rave isn’t there.

And it would be remiss not to mention 2025… a small hint of the goodies they’ve lined up is below and what’s more tickets are up for grabs in so many ways there’s bound to be one that suits. See in the summer down by the Severn.

shrewsburyfolkfestival.co.uk