Saddleworth's Rushcart Festival marked its 50th year in 2026, and for Saddleworth Independent reporter Leslie Kerwin it was a first visit. He described the experience as weird, tiring and completely alien, but said he cannot wait for the next one.

The festival is not a party or a march, nor quite like any other event he has been to, he wrote. Thousands of people cram into a heaving mass as they shuffle into the centre of Greenfield, already eyeing the long walk back up to Uppermill.

For Kerwin, the first thing to hit was not the excitement of the crowd but the smell of beer wafting in the breeze. Morris dancers in neat, toy-soldier lines jingled along to fiddles and accordions, while above them sat the jockey atop the cart.

The three-tonne, 16ft cart takes over a month to prepare and contains the names of past and present members of the Saddleworth Morris Men. Over the course of the day it is dragged inch by inch up to Uppermill, before trundling through the rest of Saddleworth's villages.

On the way up, Kerwin met Cath Kenyon of the Saddleworth Women's Morris and Clog group. She has been going to the Rushcart since 1974 and has missed only one. She told him that as a woman she was never able to dance until equal opportunity, inclusivity and diversity schemes came along.

Lady dancers were not allowed to join the Morris Ring, the union of Morris clubs, until about 2018, she said. Earlier that week, the Saddleworth Women's Morris and Clog group danced before the Morris Ring to become full members, and were officially accepted on the Tuesday.

She added that Morris is a whole family and one whole community, and that it is a family event everyone should come to.

The Sunday half of the festival brought a host of new characters, among them Saddleworth's best gurners, worst singers, and an 'endangered' clog maker from Yorkshire.

Kerwin also met Caroline Allen and Penelope Morrison of Chelmsford Morris, on their second trip with the group, who were dressed in frilled dresses and rainbow stockings.

"I've done Morris and English country folk dancing since I was a child, so I've always been involved in it," Caroline said. "Our group is a very, very friendly and supportive group. Morris dancing is really good fun, it keeps you fit, and keeps your mind going since you've got to learn the dances. The whole atmosphere here is brilliant. It's just fabulous."

Kerwin summed up the festival as 'Really good fun': a heaving mass of jingle-belled men and women jumping through the streets, laden with beer steins, floral hats and handkerchiefs in the blazing sunshine.

He wrote that it was mental, bizarre, and like nothing he had ever seen, and that he would absolutely be there next year.

He also asked his father whether he felt any nostalgia for the festival. His father's only reply was about taking the ends off pea shooters as a child, a pastime several others had mentioned when asked how they spent their Rushcart Festivals as children.