By Martin Vennard BBC News, Reading

Nanci Griffith was a favourite with Womad crowds

Every year I looked forward to July when I could walk the half-a-mile from my house in Reading to the Womad festival.

I always found some of the same people I saw there the previous year, at their favourite spots in front of the beer tent.

That is no longer possible because last week the organisers of Britain's biggest and best-known world music festival announced that they were going west - to Wiltshire, precisely.

When I heard the news I was devastated, as were many of my Reading friends. One of them emailed the bad news to me. No one did that when North Korea announced that it had exploded a nuclear device.

I have been going to Womad since 1998 and covering it for the BBC since 2000, and have had some of the best times there it is possible to have in Reading.

Finnish trio Varttina entertained the Womad crowd

It is one of the few times when my metropolitan friends are envious of the fact that I live here. While many of them look down on Reading as a cultural back water, once a year they had to admit that Reading was where it was happening.

True, we will still have the rock festival in Reading, but it's just not the same. While it attracts teenagers and other fans from around the south east and beyond, Womad had more of Reading feel to it.

The council was involved and a substantial number of local people were attracted by its friendly, laid-back atmosphere.

Some of them even got to perform there, including Kate Winslet's musical dad. The actress was spotted wandering around the festival with her young family a few years ago.

The organisers say they are ending their 17-year affair with Reading because they have outgrown the site by the River Thames, with 40,000 people attending this year.

WOMAD IN READING In pictures: Womad

I emailed them to ask them why they couldn't also use adjacent land that the Mean Fiddler group uses to accommodate more than 60,000 people for the Reading festival.

They told me the land belonged to the Mean Fiddler and that it just wasn't a viable proposition.

Some people have suggested setting up a replacement festival in Reading. The involvement of the government's live music czar, Fergal Sharkey, has even been mentioned.

'Great unwashed'

But it just won't be the same. I've seen artists like Youssou N'Dour, Nigel Kennedy, Suzanne Vega, the Proclaimers, Jimmy Page and Rolf Harris at Womad. I've danced to more African drummers and Latino fusion bands than I can possibly remember.

I've discovered things like Finnish folk and Siberian throat singing. I even sang in Sinead O'Connor's ear once - she's probably still traumatised by the experience.

I've enjoyed it so much that I've even been to one of the Womad festivals in the Canary Isles. It was smaller, but free.

You're probably thinking that it's only 50-odd miles down the road to the new Womad site in Wiltshire. Why can't I go there?

To be honest, I probably will. At least once, anyway.

But I won't be able to go home each evening and sleep in my own bed, then have a shower before returning to the fray. I'll have to camp like the great unwashed from London, who once a year I was able to look down on for three days.