THIS friendly festival is very much growing organically into a four-day event with plenty of bands playing on a damp Thursday evening, including stalwarts Quinns Quinney and Rigmarollers.

But let’s start at the second beginning of Purbeck Valley Folk Festival, the utterly sublime boutique offering set in the middle of the Purbeck hills, Friday lunchtime.

The first act in the Long Barn, never my favourite place, was billed as Paul and Sheila Burke, the festival’s patriarch and matriarch – but it was much more than that with the likes of son Bob, daughter Cath, grandsons Connor, Basil and Ernie and son-in-law Philip Kingsbury all playing for this family band.

Paul and Sheila, now in or approaching their eighties, have even made their first CD and played some of the tunes from it in this graveyard slot noon performance – jolly good fun it was too and they even had time to slot it the Leonard Cohen cover Dance Me To The End Of Love. Lovely stuff.

And that was just the start of proceedings at the site, as usual at Purbeck Valley Farm off the A351 between Corfe Castle and Harman’s Cross - with views across Corfe Castle, Swanage Railway’s heritage steam trains running alongside the site and the beautiful Jurassic Coast just around the corner.

And, while festival reviews should very much not be weather reports, it doesn't half make a difference when there are three days of sunshine and the ‘keep rehydrating’ message had to be repeated.

Afternoon shows included Purbeck Rising veteran Den Miller’s quirky songs and Bridport’s Stompin’ Dave offering Americana, blues and flatfoot dancing, while one-man band Rory McLeod, suffering from vocal problems, carried on regardless, channelling Ian Dury and John Otway.

The effervescent Gibraltarian Gabriel Moreno, in the first of three appearances, proffered his life-affirming words and music on the Words stage, accompanied by fiddler Richard Moore, and including favourites like We Can Write England All Over Again and the Cohen cover Everybody Knows.

The Welsh five-piece Rholben provided lush melodies behind Siriol Davies’s beautiful voice and Firkin’s Drift – Seth Byes and Chris Roberts – reimagined traditional tunes, while the supreme professional Tim Edey never disappoints.

Yorkshire duo O’Hooley & Tidow – Belinda and Heidi to the uninitiated – augmented their extraordinary tales of everyday life with a marvellously big sound and, of course, they ended with Gentleman Jack, their theme tune to the BBC series of the same name.

Personal highlight of the day was the return of talkative Norfolk-born, Bristol-based singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Kelly with his regular trio made up of Toby Shaer and Archie Moss.

The acclaimed Kelly’s live set is always brilliant and, despite him suffering from a cricket-induced cracked rib, he put his all into the likes of Greenland Whale and Angeline The Baker. Catch him if you can.

Headliner Seckou Keita & the Homeland Band delivered African rhythms across the festival site. The virtuoso kora (a 21-string Malian instrument) player – who will be playing with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra at Lighthouse, Poole, next February – was backed by a lively seven-piece band.

It was left to the infectious, high-energy brass of Danger Goat, ‘rampageous’ 3 Daft Monkeys and European party time band Marvara to close out the day’s proceedings.

The Songwriters Circle is always fascinating insight into the motivation, craft and procedure of producing tunes. This year the aforementioned Gabriel Moreno and rambling Rory McLeod participated, along with Julu Irving and Heg Brignall of The Suthering, in a 90-minute event hosted by Bob Burke.

There were excellent performances across the day from the likes of Michael McGoldrick & Tim Edey, Owl in the Sun, Two Man Ting, Jaeja and the passionate Irish combo Kila.

But Saturday belonged to the pure vocals of Cornwall based Martha Tilston who was joined on stage by the Bristol’s Murmuration Choir. And it wouldn’t be Saturday without Quinns Quinney offshoot Wiff Waff playing in the bar.

As well as four evenings and three full days of outstanding, original young folk, roots and world music across five stages, Purbeck Valley Folk Festival this year seemed to have more music workshops, sessions, comedy, crafts and children’s activities than ever before.

These included storytelling, a climbing wall, archery, The Circus of Science, theatre workshops, lots of crafts, puppet shows, bubble displays, baby/toddler rhyme time sessions, face-painting, a treasure hunt, bouncy castles, fancy dress, maypole dancing and Morris dance workshops.

There was also a family ceilidh, space-hopper obstacle course, welly wanging, and Circus Wessex’s skills performances and workshops including juggling, diablo, devil’s sticks, unicycling, stilt walking, low-level trapeze acts, and evening fire shows.

Sunday saw the big guns come out to play. The consistently good John Smith, now with a steel electric guitar and surely just one hit away from the big time, performed his superior material with double bass support.

Sadly he clashed with Megson, the now veteran (they celebrate 20 years as an act this autumn) north-east husband and wife duo of Stu and Debbie Hanna whose exquisite vocals and tales about real people often leave the audience emotionally drained. Luckily there was time to hear The Longshot and a cover of that other Middlesbrough maestro Chris Rea’s Road To Hell.

Unexpected delight of the day came in the form of Le Vent du Nord, Quebec’s finest folk export, whose energetic live shows over two decades have gathered multiple plaudits. The friendly five-piece specialise in raucous traditional French-Canadian folk, singing mostly in French and even have a hurdy-gurdy player in their ranks in Nicholas Boulerice.

The Henry Girls – sisters Karen, Lorna and Joleen McLaughlin who named their act after their grandfather – travelled from the north of County Donegal for a Sunday lunchtime performance of graceful harmonies.

Otherwise, Cardiff via Conakry balafon expert N’Famady Kouyate performed with and without band and sea shanty specialists The Longest Johns rocked the main barn and, of course, included the viral hit Wellerman.

Honourable mentions to Gabriel Moreno for his third show of the weekend, to the Wareham Whalers and Swanage’s Kelp for singalongs, to the irrepressible Moscow Drug Club, to Southampton Ukulele Jam, to the fun Morris Dancers Enigma and to Sublime Science for keeping the granddaughter occupied for half an hour.