The seventh and possibly last Guiseley Music Festival saw around £2,000 raised for its chosen beneficiaries, the main charity being Help for Heroes.

Guiseley singer Peter Grant, who has risen to international fame on the jazz scene, was invited to headline the festival and then decided to turn his trip home into a pub crawl, playing at three local venues before pitching up on the main stage in the Station pub car park.

Grant played at Guiseley Factory Workers’ Club, the Red Lion and Cellar V before arriving to a warm welcome at the Station.

His charity buckets from the pub crawl contained just over £400.

At the Station in a bid to increase the amount raised for charity this time it was decided to charge for a wristband and so the buckets had just over £1,000 rattling into them – making a grand total approaching £1,500 in all for Help for Heroes.

Yeadon Air Training Corps again manned the barbecue to raise funds for their unit.

Moving the festival from the bank holiday Sunday to a Saturday initially had some effect as many people were still busy playing or being involved in cricket, football and rugby locally. Leeds United’s home game was also a counter attraction but by early evening the crowds had swelled and hundreds of people enjoyed themselves in the sunshine.

The Yeadon Air Cadets band kicked off proceedings before local band Claymore Avenue took to the stage. Their lead singer Tamar Hall has now become an accomplished performer after starting out at the Station’s open mic nights.

She completed a fine set before dashing off to take her place behind the bar, working along with her Station colleagues to keep the crowd provided with refreshments.

Easy-listening duo Starkings continued the entertainment on stage before Wharfedale band, Time Warp, entertained with a very tight set of classic hits from the 50s and 60s. Former Terrorvision member Mark Yates appeared on double bass with the highly-entertaining Broken Hearts Club and there was a musical trip back to the 80s with Leeds band Remember Hillards.

Then came one of the major highlights experienced at any of the Guiseley Festivals when former chart topping band Musical Youth set the crowd swinging, swaying and singing to the reggae beat.

The five-piece travelled all the way from Birmingham to support Help for Heroes, and, yes, they did sing their big hit, Pass the Duchie On the Left Hand Side.

While Peter Grant’s band were setting up on stage, veteran Guiseley Royal British Legion fundraiser Irene addressed the crowd speaking of her pride in local people turning out and doing their bit to help wounded servicemen, showing their support for Help for Heroes just as they had done at the last festival in May for the Royal British Legion.

The festival came to a rousing finale with Peter Grant back on home soil playing to the biggest crowd he has ever seen in Guiseley.

The polished performer gave the crowd a taste of the new musical direction he is moving in with his next album, as well as performing some of his old favourites.

Grant has seen the high life, playing at Formula 1 grand prix balls all over the world, as well as playing for Belgian royalty. But he can’t have gained any greater satisfaction from that than returning home to play in front of an appreciative crowd, many of whom went to Guiseley School with him.

The festival was again testament to the organisational talents and vision of Station landlord Tony McCaul, who has worked tirelessly to put on the past seven festivals, and it would be a real pity if this were to be the last one as he suggested it might be.