MUSIC, dancing and fireworks will help keep the memory of a late pub landlady alive.

A north Oxfordshire pub is preparing to celebrate its second beer festival in memory of Anne Prigent.

The 41-year-old manager of the Horse and Groom, in Caulcott, near Bicester, passed away in 2009 after a long battle with a rare type of stomach cancer.

Mrs Prigent ran the pub with her husband and pub chef Jerome Prigent, who has organised the festival in aid of Katharine House Hospice, where his wife was nursed in her final days.

The hospice, in Adderbury, near Banbury, provides respite and end of life care for the terminally ill.

Mr Prigent, 37, said his wife was a caring and strong woman.

He said: “She was just a lovely person, always trying to help people. Anne was a very popular landlady because she cared and listened to people and tried to give them advice.”

The festival, which will run from Friday, July 15, to Sunday, July 17, has been timed to coincide with Bastille Day in honour of Mr Prigent’s native France.

It will feature 20 real ales and four real ciders from local breweries including the White Horse brewery, in Stanford in the Vale, and a number of breweries in Cornwall, where Mrs Prigent grew up.

Four local bands, folk outfits the Fork Handles and Delaney’s Angel, will be performing alongside jazz musicians Laurie Fray and Lisa Fitzgibbon, and fiddle player Jane Griffiths.

Local morris dance sides The Kirtlington Morris Men, Owlslick and Cumnor-based Armaleggan will perform, and on the Friday there will be a special fireworks display.