Hobbies and pastimes, sport and activities will also have a central role in a “bigger and better” event that has been put together by Dunfermline Delivers and First Dunfermline.

And, contrary to rumours, Robert the Bruce has not been ditched and his story will be part of a wider festival that’s trying to appeal to everyone.

Fife Council’s Dunfermline area services manager, Joe McGuinness, said, “The general feeling from First Dunfermline was that the Bruce Festival was becoming a little tired.

“We didn’t want to lose that focus as Bruce is a very important part of the history of Dunfermline but not the only part.

“We wanted to make it a festival for all the people of Dunfermline.” A former pupil at Inverkeithing High School, Chris Foote (right) has been Dunfermline Delivers event manager since January and has been tasked with building on our existing attractions – including the fireworks display and Christmas lights switch-on – and coming up with some new ones.

He’s already working on ideas for a comedy festival, an outdoor cinema and an ‘Enchanted Glen’ sound and light extravaganza but first up is a revamp for what was the Bruce Festival.

The newly-named Festival of Dunfermline will take place in Pittencrieff Park on Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th September.

He explained, “Instead of focusing on one period, we’ve expanded the event and freshened it up. We’re trying to make it more community-based, for people with their own clubs and ideas and give them a platform to take it forward.

“The Bruce Festival is still going to be a part of it but we wanted to offer something for everyone.

“We’ve got the Historic Village, which will be in the central part of the Glen which will have a medieval camp and the Bruce story, there will also be a Napoleonic camp to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Waterloo and a World War Two camp.

“They’ll all be tied in with Dunfermline and there will be re-enactments and the chance for people to go in and see how people lived back then.” The two-day event will hope to attract thousands of people to the Glen and there’s certainly variety. Chris said, “There will be a cabaret tent. In the morning there will be storytelling for children and we’re looking for music acts so we’re talking to folk clubs and there will be comedy in the afternoon running too.

“We’ve also got a music stage with Heart and Sound, the guys who are based in New Row. We’ll have two full days of music from local young bands that record in the studio – they’re hoping to get 10-15 bands to play.” He continued, “Dunfermline Model Aero Club will be taking up the whole south lawn and they’ll have people coming from across Scotland.

“It’ll be quite a spectacular event as they’ll have 26-foot Spitfires and flight simulators, lots of weird and wonderful stuff.” Cycle Dunfermline will be part of the new festival, as will The Clan, Scotland’s cycle stunt team.

Chris said, “They’ll be doing some amazing tricks – just look them up on You Tube and you’ll see what they’re about, it’s brilliant.

“On the Saturday they’re bringing a huge inflatable, it looks like a giant whoopee cushion, which they’ll be jumping off on their bikes. “There’ll be an array of cycling ideas as well as a bike doctor and a demonstration about powering lights through pedalling, there will also be guided cycle tours round the park. Active Schools are coming along so there will be demonstrations and various sports people can come along and have a go at, everything from American football to karate.

“We’ll have lots of activities and hope it offers something for everyone.” Despite the change to what was the Bruce Festival, there’ll be a sense of history indoors.

Chris said, “In the pavilion we’ll be bringing back the hobbies and recreation exhibition. I did some research and it was a huge event in Dunfermline.

“We’ll have everything from the rabbit club to the horticultural society, baking, a cycle class, model railway enthusiasts and Corgi car collectors. There will be stalls and a way of them giving out membership forms and highlighting what they do throughout the year.” Joe added, “We’re going backwards to go forwards to some degree as part of what Chris has come up with are the hobbies and pastimes which were very popular in years gone by.

“I remember it ran every year under the old district council, every hobby you could think of, and it’s a sense of trying to resurrect that.

“It’s going to give the community many more opportunities to get involved and having Chris to focus and co-ordinate it all has been a Godsend.” He added, “Next year we hope to be in a position to look at the ‘Enchanted Glen’ idea. It was too tight this year both for the budget and time so we took the difficult decision to hold back till next year.

“Hopefully on the back of the expected income streams from 82 High Street we’ll have the funds to make it work properly.” Chris concluded, “We’re trying to do something every few months, I don’t want to leave a huge gap.

“The Hallowe’en event will be after this, then you have the fireworks and Christmas, in the Spring we’re going into more fringe ideas, the comedy festival and children’s festival, ideally we want to have a calendar of events that people have in their diary a year in advance.” Any societies, sports clubs and local interest groups who would like to be in the hobbies exhibition can email events@dunfermline-delivers.co.uk