Concertina enthusiast Dorothy Nicoll after her “hat-trick” win.

Burnley Festival reaped a harvest of local winners, fine performances and excellent music. There was something for everyone at the music section of the festival this weekend and the delighted audience left with the contented look of a fat cat having polished off the last drop from a large bowl of cream.
Schoolboy Roger Bentley set the scene on Friday night when he scooped the William Smith Trophy for his performance on the cello. But the Burnley Grammar School pupil was upstaged later in the evening by nine-year-old Stewart Beal, who outplayed older competitors to take the overall junior instrumental trophy.
For student David Tillinghast there was a special tonic to celebrate his coming of age. He won the vocal duet at the first attempt with Suzanne Hobley on his 18th birthday. And it was another year of success for Suzanne, who continued her winning ways by returning home with a clutch of silver trophies.
Burnley’s singing newsagent Lindon Amison could not repeat his performance of last year and claim the most prestigious award of the weekend, the Co-operative Jewellers Rosebowl, which went to Eileen Davies of Blackpool, but he was well satisfied by winning the new George Allen Memorial Cup.
The Burnley High School and Grammar School Orchestra, playing together for the first time before the two schools merge next year, won the Burnley Express and News Challenge Shield.
Two competitors travelled from as far as Northampton and London, at the invitation of former chairman of the music committee Miss Dorothy Nicoll. Her love of the concertina has put her in touch with many musicians throughout the country and she invited two fellow members of the International Concertina Association. But Miss Nicoll proved too experienced when she competed against them in the Thomas Pollard Cup and won the trophy for the third successive year and five times in all.
Part of the original report by Brian Feeney, pictures by Keith Snowden and Alan Marsden.