“As a child, I used to get dragged up Pendle Hill to go walking with my folks, and I’d hear tales of these scary, fiendish women, the so-called Pendle Witches,” said Flanagan, one of the headliners at this month’s SeekOut arts and music Festival in the Gisburn Forest, July 26-28. “When you really researched their story, though, then you see how horrifically they were treated and how they suffered awful and terrible injustices. ' We wanted to give the Pendle Witches a right of reply.
“It was a great period of self-reflection for a lot of people, certainly for me,” said Flanagan. “But it also had massive effect on people’s mental health and there’s still a hangover post-pandemic, lots of people still fearing going out to gigs, being more selective what they spend their money on. I don’t know how kids in bands survive just doing the one thing. But when covid closed everything down it probably saved my life.