As the end looms, a little something - light-hearted!?!, to keep you going.  No not another "End of the World" prediction, this time the end of the year and hoping that 2013 contains "the turn too far!"  Confused, well you'll have to read on!!

Le Manège enchanté (Magic Roundabout)

 – New Year Review

The Coalition seem ConDemed to meeting themselves

Coming back.

So many u-turns they must be going around in circles,

Magic circles, man!

Sitting in my different astral plane,

Laid back with my friendly rabbit – Dylan,

 I’m transported to a Magic Roundabout

Swindon’s magic roundabouts,

Once on it, those of

Nervous disposition, lost forever.

ConDemed forever to turn, around and around

Constant U-turn after U-turn

Eventually, hoping to be flung far off, far into obscurity

Regretting not being able to have:

Seen the wood from the trees,

The pasty from the caviar,

Charity from a fast buck,

Protected pheasants from the buzzards

(Maybe those peasant blighters could be shot instead!);

 

That would no doubt have saved both money

And face on:

Housing Benefits

Disability Living Allowance

Bookstart

School Sport

Domestic violence changes

NHS Direct

Military Covenant

Video Games Tax Relief

 

And would then perhaps have been able to fund:

NHS Waiting times,

Scottish Independence Referendum,

Joint Strike Fighter,

Chief Coroner,

Financial Inclusion Fund,

All of which have met themselves coming back!

And, all at a cost!

 

Throw into the ebb and flow of the turning,

Issues such as:

VAT on static caravans,

Secret Courts,

Unannounced OFSTED Inspections,

Public funding of The Conservative Party Photographer

And Camerawoman.

The list* seems endless

Constantly growing ......

 

The lady wasn’t for turning.

But if she’d gone, she’d be turning now,

In her grave.

As it is she must be wringing her hands in despair

As “One couldn’t possibly approve, could one?,

But, on the other hand it’s

More people trampled on

And left in the “merde!”

Wish I’d thought of some of these!!”

 

Maybe there’ll be one turn too many

And they’ll be thrown out

By centrifugal forces;

ConDemed to ignominy

Discredited forever.   

  

(*try Googling "Coalition Government u-turns," should get you

to a Guardian website which if it wasn’t so serious it would

certainly be laughable!!)

 

A couple more for good measure

Hopefully to get me back into the creative mode!

 

NIGHT SKY.

  

I left late, drawn by the dark night sky

My departure greeted by one shimmering star.

 

Racing clouds scurried across the dark,

 

Wiping clean the velvet of the night.

 

Leaving clear the vast expanse

 

Of night in all its wondrous hues.

 

Then a thousand tiny lights

 

Of distant stars, too far to contemplate.

 

Other worlds or other beings

 

A mighty majesty lain bare.

 

A falling star brings down the eye

 

To gaze on twinkling islands.

 

As cottages their lights ablaze,

Prepare for bed, another day tomorrow.

 

from Home for a Week 1995 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

                                                                     White Hill

                                                                   

                                                                               I came down from the sun-scorched hill

  Roger M. Higgs                                    

                                                                              Into the mellow coolness

  “Words provide                        

  a clear, lasting snapshot               Of the secluded valley.

  of a time, a place                      

  and feelings.                               Hidden by the dusty trees

  Often personal to                      

  the writer,                                 Dressed in their summer clothes,

  evoking                                     

  when returned to,                      There they stood

  that time, place                 

  and feelings.                              Like sentinels,

  But shared,                               

  by all who …..                           To the dappled fields beyond.

  choose to read.”                        

                                                  Motionless, 

                                         Surreal

                                         

                                    Certainly unreal.

 

 

Words, Words, Words

Roses are red, Violets are blue, Sugar is sweet, And so are you.

Roses are red, Violets are blue, Some poems rhyme, Mine doesn’t!

Roses are red, Violets are blue, Thy eyes are red, Cause you’ve had a pint or two!

Back in the summer I showed my ten year old, soon the following week to be eleven, niece my growing collected poems, a recent project with the working title: “Say it with Words, collected poems ..... moments in time and beyond” that, to date, nobody else has seen.  It came about after a serious discussion she had instigated about whether or not poems should rhyme!

Over the coming weeks and months, I’m going to share some of the project with you, my wider audience, here then for starters is the introduction:

 

Say it with flowers, no words.

                            with apologies to Interflora;

                            inter ...... between, among, within a group

                            flora ...... flowers, plants, vegetation,

 but between friends,

 among allies

 within your group

 don’t forget the

 flowers,

 plants,

vegetation,

as sometimes

actions

speak louder than words!

  

“Poets don’t draw.  They unravel their

handwriting and then tie it up again,

but differently.”

Jean Cocteau 

“We do not remember days

we remember moments."

 

                                      Cesare Parese

  

I like to think of it as 

“Free Form Poetry”

or

“As it happens Poetry”  

with a rhyme if it

happens to be there!  Not sure if these

are original “names,” but I like to think so!!

Roger

And, here’s the first one from the “book” (as some of it indeed in a book, other offerings are currently stored electronically!), from a previously “published” booklet called Common Ramblings” and both apt after the last blog post and for those up in matters of folk music as next month sadly seems to herald the demise of Mike Harding from his regular folk programme on Wednesday evening, BBC Radio 2 – shame on them!:

Student Days

each time from when on high I see

the myriad of lights spread out

beyond the plunging hillside

in the valley far below

surprisingly I'm taken back

to far off student days

and Mike Harding

folk singer, rambler and Rochdale cowboy

on his rickety stuffed alsation dog

the audience hushed

save the easily put down heckler

from "rent-a-pratt, Leeds branch"

and the story unfolds

of how one night

he was forced from his bed

by bladdery needs

and stood gazing from his window

down on the lights of Manchester

far below

a myriad of lights spread out

majestic and mystical

each tiny light its own

story could unfold

as it shimmered and lit up

 

the surrounding blanket of the night

he, like I, went on to question

the meaning of it all

the meaning of life itself

it all being out there

encompassed by the twinkling

of those far off anonymous lights

joy, misery, laughter and pain

there .......

he, like I, then thought .......

sod it, and went back to bed

 

And to keep you going for the time being, one of those currently stored electronically, a haiku style poem combining words with another love – photography,  unfortunately it isn't letting me load this properly, with words superimposed on the photo with an attractive coloured border, you'll have to use your imagination, I'll try again next time!!:

 

After the Rain   Puddles in the lane     Grey damp sky and dripping trees Waiting for the sun

 

Echo of a Song ~ Part 2

Back for the second half, hopefully you’ve enjoyed the choc ices or managed to find your order on the drinks table, visited the loo and are once again ready for the next cacophony of sound! 

The scene has now changed, still in the north of England, but now more central, Leeds, where at the time (1975) there was the most amazing folk scene that complimented my studies, in life if not at the university very well, at least that’s what I like to think!  During the next three years at venues too numerous to mention, (except two: The Grove Folk Club, a twice weekly haunt during this time and famous for being the world’s longest running single venue folk club still going strong now, but more of that later and The Student Union where I was recorded live on a Mike Harding Album and credited on the sleeve, and I quote “Hecklers by rent-a-prat Leeds,” I was one of many!) I managed to see just about anybody who was anybody on the scene then and huge numbers of people who either went on to great things or faded into obscurity.  This brings to mind a line from a Decameron song, “Breakdown of the song” about one who didn’t make it – “The greatest moment of his entire career, was when he turned his back and made it to the wings.”  How sad is that! 

But, the next song was written by one of the greats, Ewan MacColl, who once said “My function is not to reassure people.  I want to make them uncomfortable.  To send them out of the place arguing and talking,” and has been credited by many with being one of the founding fathers of the new folk revival that happened at that time.  He is best known perhaps for his “Radio Ballads” about the ordinary working people, the Grammy Award winning song of 1973, “The first time ever I saw your face” recorded by Roberta Flack and numerous hard hitting protest songs such as ...   

Manchester Rambler – Leeds:  This year saw the 80^th Anniversary of the Kinder Mass Trespass.  The 1932 Mass Trespass, after which five ramblers were imprisoned for exercising their right to walk on the moors, has been called the most significant event in the century-old battle for the Right to Roam.  It was an iconic event not only for freedom to roam legislation, finally achieved by the CROW Act of 2000, but for the creation of our National Parks, of which the Peak District was the first in 1951.

Manchester Rambler is a famous song about the trespass, written by none other than Ewan MacColl, and I heard him perform it live, with his then partner Peggy Seeger, most probably at The Grove, if not also elsewhere.  Then, having recently been looking up old songs and searching for folk stars of the past via various websites, I find that Ewan’s son, Hamish from his second wife lives, not 5 miles down the road and is a good friend of good friends of ours!  They have promised to introduce us, but I need warning so as not to be introduced and blurt out totally inappropriately “I knew your father!” like some teen fan!!

There now follows something of a gap, possibly due to the vast majority of folk clubs being in pubs with deep cellars, but despite falling madly in love with Miriam Backhouse, and particularly her giggle on “I can see a nasty spider creeping up on you!”, then being devastated to find that she and her boyfriend (later husband) were emigrating to Australian.  I walked five or six miles to her farewell concert, and back although I don’t remember much of that trip, the whole evening being something of an emotional blur!!  With the music ringing in my ear I graduated, went to do my PGCE, the teacher bit, taught briefly in York before moving south to Croydon, where for a while I was one of several “resident” singers at “The Ship Folk Club” in Croydon high street, which actually sounds rather grander than it was!!!

Then, the demands of the job, getting married, having a family and the commitments that brings, pushed folk clubs at least, rather to one side, although I continued to sing in the bath and have occasional forays to the odd folk club when I could escape!!!  From Croydon, I had moved north to Cambridgeshire, formerly and now once again Huntingdonshire (can anyone explain the financial sense in regularly changing boundaries and administrative areas?), where the family arrived, before making the move west to Gloucestershire, and a school where I came out fully, from my shy and retiring former self* in case you have jumped to the wrong conclusion!, and is responsible for the next three or four selections.  *Most people laugh when I say this, but this is a piece of non-fiction and absolutely true – ask ‘er indoors!!  I can also tell you the start of this process, the change and coming out came about because I was once told, at interview, that I didn’t get the job as I “wasn’t blonde and vivacious!” but that’s another story, although at this stage I’ll suffice to say I didn’t go blonde, just bald instead, but certainly tried to be vivacious!

This Night the Stars – Stroud, Gloucestershire:  I have always had a fascination with the moon, some might say a lunatic obsession, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion!!  Only a night or two ago, when walking back from putting to bed our friend’s two ducks and a chicken, and having run the gauntlet of their neighbour’s two very vicious geese, fortunately they seem less worried by walkers than cars – drive by and they charge at the car, pecking at its side or the wheels!!, I gazed wistfully at the full moon rising over the nearby field, silhouetting the hedgerow trees along the side of the road and said to Linda you can understand why early man was mystified by the moon and worshipped it.  Her response was simply, “I suppose!,”  But she’s not as blown away by the wonders of the world as I am!!  Some of you may also remember that my daughter and I commune through the moon, when she is far away!

Moving to Stroud I discovered a local celebrated singer / songwriter who was in the process of carrying out a number of projects involving putting some famous Gloucestershire poets, or more exactly their poems to music, blending neatly my love of folk music with a love of poetry, particularly when performed live.  The poems of people like: F.W. Harvey, Ivor Gurney, Leonard Clark, John Drinkwater, Frank Mansell, Eva Dobell and not forgetting Laurie Lee, of Cider with Rosie fame, with whom he collaborating on what turned out to be a splendid album of Laurie reading his poetry and Johnny singing some he had put to music, the album named after one of Laurie’s poems “The Edge of Day.”   When I moved to Stroud, Laurie and his wife, Cathy, still lived in the small village of Slad along the valley from Stroud, made famous by Cider with Rosie.  I became quite friendly with Cathy, Laurie’s wife, but sadly “I never got to shake the great man’s hand” which is the title of a poem I have been writing since Laurie’s death in 1997.  I’d like to say it’s going to be an epic, but probably not, it’s just a poem about so great a poet and author, I have to get the words right!

But, back to Johnny, who by an amazing coincidence was no other than the lead singer of the 1970’s folk rock group Decameron, right back at the beginning in St Mary’s Church, Sandwich.  However, his fantastic new material which he regularly performed with a smattering of older stuff, was great for assembly music and often I would put on a topical piece for the children to come and go to.  Having been doing this for some months at the end of one assembly a young boy in my class, Alexander, came up to me and said “You know Johnny Coppin who’s singing this song?  My Dad used to be in a group with him called Decameron!”  It was one of those moments, when fanfares sound and small boys standing in front of you wonder why you’ve gone weak at the knees and all peculiar!!  The end of the day I couldn’t wait to get home and pull the records of the shelf and find Alex’s Dad, Geoff March, there somewhat younger and with more hair but unmistakably in the line-up, another amazing coincidence. 

One of my favourite Johnny Coppin songs is “This Night the Stars” a poem by Leonard Clark that he put to music, I suppose another amazing coincidence is that Leonard Clark became a lecturer in education and taught at the teacher training college my aunt went to!!  The next Christmas, Alex made me a card which I still have somewhere, on the front was a picture he had drawn of a starry night and inside one of the verses of the poem, perhaps after all he had understood my reaction!        

Before leaving Johnny Coppin and slightly out of sequence, the obvious choice for my first assembly when I moved from my first headship in Stroud to the big smoke of Gloucester, just had to be: “The Roads Go Down” a poem by Frank Mansell, set to music by Johnny with the first verse that goes “The roads go down to Gloucester town And Severn seeks the sea; But what road leads where I’d be gone, What river flows to thee?”  Kind of apt – I also played it at my final rather tearful assembly but again that’s another story, as well as water under the bridge, as it were!!

Moving On (Gastrells School, Stroud) But, as I said, I’ve got a little out of sequence and before I moved on from Gastrells School in Stroud, where I was Deputy Headteacher and down the road to be Headteacher the other side of town and several years before I went down the hill to Gloucester Town, someone very dear to me, Heulwen, a mentor for later Headships needs mention.  Gastrells School was at this time very special, a group of teachers who collectively hit it off and many remaining in close contact – it just works seemingly effortlessly, despite the onset of the National Curriculum and all that involved!!  Having announced her retirement the school came together as only Gastrells could to arrange a final sent off for Heulwen, that included a final “Party Pieces Evening” for adults in the evening.  We had done this on a couple of previous occasions as amongst the staff at the school, including Heulwen herself and the childrens’ parents was an amazing pool of musical talent.  The final party pieces was a surprise and involved many of Heulwen’s family and friends and I sang the title song of this section, Moving On as well as Something in Welsh at the end of the highly emotionally charged evening.  As I sang the last note I collapsed into a gibbering heap beside the stage, and although the something in Welsh has been long forgotten, it took me many years before I could bring myself to sing Moving On again, even in the shower.  Now, steeped in memories, I’m singing it again as it seems kind of fitting having moved well and truly on!! 

Some years passed before Delilah, Abbeydale, Gloucester.  I have only done karaoke twice in my life, the first time at a school disco during my first Headship, when perhaps feeling my age the only thing I recognised on “The List” was Frank Sinatra’s My Way and I’m sure many thought it was my way not his!!  But, several years later we were invited to one of Linda’s colleague’s 50^th birthday.  It was a fancy dress karaoke party, come as the person whose song you were going to sing, and from “The List” jumped out Tom Jones and all his bling!!  This time I did my homework, practised long and hard, even as far as looking at the actions and how the great man holds the microphone. 

The night arrived and the bling went on where it could be hidden under the plain dinner suit I wore, or was concealed in the pockets after all I needed to make an entrance, not when I arrived at the party, but arriving at the microphone.  As the evening wore on and my spot loomed the bow tie was undone, the shirt buttons undone down to the waist and the extra bling added to the fingers, so as the microphone was passed to me the DJ did a double take as he hadn’t realised Tom Jones was in the room!!  The women screamed, and as the final note faded and I adopted the correct pose, I was nearly knocked off my feet by the birthday girl who had chosen not to throw her knickers at me, instead threw her whole self at me!  However, shortly afterwards one of the other nurses draped herself around me and announced loudly to all around, “I’d have thrown my knickers at you, but I’m not wearing any!”  Oh, the hardships of fame!!    

Now we go back nearly to the beginning; Five o’clock on a Sunday nite, or Watercress O! to give it its other name and my return to The Grove Folk Club.  It was the month we had made the decision to move to France, and we had headed north to tell Linda’s family and other friends.  It was also near my birthday and I happened to see that Jez Lowe was appearing at The Grove, so decided to make a return visit after thirty years or more, hoping to get a chance to sing a floor spot before sitting back and enjoying Jez.  However, we arrived a little late as although The Grove is still there and as we finally discovered totally unchanged outside, the surrounding area was totally changed, the old factory buildings replaced by shiny glass and steel office blocks towering over the small pub.  Finally arriving, we walked in and I stepped back in time, not only the outside was unchanged but so was the inside, not even appearing to have had a coat of paint, and going through to the club room at the back I even discovered that after all this time one of the organisers from “my time” was still there and possibly one of the others, but they weren’t there that particular week.  I got a floor spot, but ended up having to wait until the second half, and when my time came I got up on the small platform, hardly big enough to call a stage, noticed the bit of wallpaper I had pulled off when taking down a poster all those years ago as truly no decoration had been done, except I was reliably informed in the lady’s loo!!   

I had originally sung, back in the circle of chairs in Marske and beyond, with my eyes closed, as not only did it seem the way to do it but, also it seemed to help calm the nerves, not being able to see the audience grimace!!   But, after several years I decided I was confident enough to open my eyes and face the music as it were, and surprise surprise, it opened up a complete new dimension.  I had one Victorian melodramatic song I had always sung seriously, until I opened my eyes and saw the comic potential which ended up with a handkerchief over the shoulder ready to mop up the tears from this suddenly soppy weepy number!!  This time round Five O’clock was sung with my eyes wide open to take in all the nostalgia, and I travelled home that night sitting in the car rather like Toad sat in the middle of the road repeating “Poop Poop” when he discovered the wonders of the internal combustion engine.  My repeated mantra was “There is such a thing as time travel!!”  It had certainly been another emotionally charged evening!    

Having now moved to France, with at times time on my hands, I have rediscovered my song book and often shatter the peace of our tranquil hamlet.  This led to a return to the stage for a rendition of Leezie Lindsey during the midsummer music festival down the road in Marsais St Radegonde, but that story is well documented in another earlier blog post, June 2012; “When was the last time,” on the other blog – It happened one Thursday in February.

So that’s my selection for the island, all that remains are the Book and Luxury Item.  I’m assuming that as you are selecting a number of musical pieces to be marooned with you must get a hi-fi system on which to play them, but I would like the luxury of it having recordable CD player, some blank discs and a selection of my own records and CD’s, so I could set about creating my very own CD, it’s one of those things on the “to do list!”   As for the book, as this is really all about me, I’d have to have one of my most treasured possessions with me a book of poems written by my colleagues at Gastrells, when I moved on.  The poems are all about me, and the book was presented to me after the poets had all read out their offering on another highly emotionally charged evening, but it would be a great way of feeling that I was not alone, but surrounded by many very dear friends!

Oh gosh, it’s sort of the end of the show, but as they say in the business “the show must go on” and it certainly could as the more I write the more the musical memories flood back, but don’t despair, there’ll have to be an encore, but just one short item!!: Many years ago, in my Mum and Dad’s local, at a time when it was largely a music free zone, at Christmas time the then Landlord and others would occasionally do their “Party Pieces,” the landlord’s often straight from the rugby club after the match!  But on this particular evening just after I arrived in the top bar, there came a haunting and halting melody from the bar below.  The song was a beautiful rendition of The Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill, an old Irish song and the surprise singer was the quiet very old farmer Fred, who was in the pub most nights for a couple of pints, but kept himself to himself and this was the one and only time I heard him sing anything and it was sung with such feeling that it was one of those hairs on the back of your neck moments and was for Fred, as well as everyone else, obviously one of his “Magical Musical Moments”

Thanks for listening, but as I turn my back and make it to the wings, I’m hoping it will be one of many more times to come!!  

Echo of a Song ~ Part 1

Having chosen this title for this post, I decided it sounded familiar and certainly not original.  I was therefore, after a computer search, somewhat surprised to find that the only references to this title were:  a short (10 minute) 1913 black and white silent film from American and a 1932 song by Peter Mendoza, recorded by past luminaries such as The Lew Stone Band and The Roy Fox Band with singer Al Bowlly.  (As an aside, if you don’t know and haven’t heard Al Bowlly sing you’ve missed a real treat, think Dennis Potter teledramas – he had a deep, expressive, resonant voice, and is credited with inventing crooning, that due possibly to the standard of microphones in his day echoes in much the same way as someone singing into an empty glass beer tankard – I know I’ve tried it, which is a clue to what might be to follow!)  More recently, Echo of a Song was the title track (that of Peter Mendoza above) of a jazz album released in 1997 by Ian Shaw, Welsh jazz singer, record producer, actor and stand up comic!!.

Not much really for a short phrase that I find both evocative and suggestive of things past, returning musical memories or seminal musical moments, which was to be original title of this blog post. 

The media is full of articles chronicling the lives of famous people – “A day on my plate!” “My perfect weekend” “My hols” “Fantasy dinner party” and many many more, that I’m busy working through, well to be honest thinking about for my next “epic” with the working title of “Non-celebrity file” with the logic that “Joe and Josie public” may be interested in what I ate today, or where I went on holiday, my best weekend or who would sit around my table for the fantasy dinner party!  (As a sneak preview, invites would go – this week, and liable to change without prior notice!! – to Nelson Mandela, Michael Palin, The Dalai Lama and Keith Floyd and for purposes of equality to the new Tesco’s checkout girl with the lovely smile for a start!, but for those of you who understand the last invitee definitely not Paul McCartney, as I might not be able to trust ‘er indoors!!). But, I digress as for this post it’s a case of “Music that shaped my life” “My life in five (or so!!!) songs” “Desert Island Discs” or “Magical Musical Moments.”

Music can be a powerful experience, it can move you emotionally, spiritually and even physically and can even be a time machine, transporting you back in time.  If I even hear High Adventure by Charles Williams or Sing Something Simple by Cliff Adams, I’m transported back to many a Friday night in the back of my Mum and Dad’s car going away for the weekend, always it seems after all these years, and we’re talking half a century, to be in the middle of the night!  But, also after all these years I still remember the tag lines: "I hope that once again we have proved that Friday Night is Music Night" and "We invite you to Sing Something Simple, a collection of favourite songs, old and new, sung by The Adams Singers, accompanied by Jack Emblow."  And, I bet that haunting melody: “By a Sleepy Lagoon” by Eric Coates (with added seagulls!) and Dvorak’s “New World” transport those of you of a certain age to a desert island somewhere or Gold Hill in Shaftesbury and an old-fashioned bread delivery bike being pushed up the hill by a small boy respectively!

Here then, are my selections for tonight, and there could be very many others, with just a short “soundtrack” or taste of why, for me at least, they are very special: 

Streets of London (Ralph McTell) – Sandwich, Kent:  I hadn’t heard this for ages until one day recently in the car when Ralph McTell was being interviewed and then sung Streets of London, as the hairs rose on the back of my neck and I had to go straight out the next day and track it down and once more those hairs are rising as it’s playing as I write this!  I can’t do this for all my choices and anyway it would take ages to find the relevant CD’s and to keep changing them and selecting the correct track, so will have to do with Hesitation Blues and all the rest of the tracks on this “Best of ......” album.  There are a further 20 McTell songs of the album, but as he pointed out in the interview, not one of them has made the impact of Streets of London on anyone, not just me!  Streets of London and the Yiddish Song, Donna Donna, about a calf being taken to market, take me back to a converted garage at the rectory in Sandwich, Kent in about 1973.  As I said in an earlier post (September 2012) about my first introduction to folk music:  “The Headmaster could barely object if we wanted to go out in the evening to “prayer meetings” at the vicarage, even if we didn’t have any of our 3 late passes left for the term!! These evening meetings took place in the converted garage of the Vicarage, included girls (a rarity as I was at an all boys school!), coffee, discussions on a variety of issues which were certainly not exclusively religious and more importantly introduced me to Folk Song and life on the streets, as in down and outs rather than prostitution!”  All of which had a profound effect on me (although I don’t recall much in the way of prayers!) and for many of the following years – I’ve just copied the words of Donna Donna and will find the lyric to Streets of London to add to my songbook and then can relive the past whenever I wish!!  Who knows perhaps a Christmas Album entitled “Roger’s Musical Snapshots” or “Higgs’ Seminal Harmonies.” ~ I’ll keep you posted!!!!

Monster Mash – Sandwich, Kent:  Remember Monster Mash, sung by Bobby and the Crypt-Kickers in 1973, well now think Chris and the Falsetto Three, Chris being a good guitar playing school friend and if you’re keeping up you will probably know who was one of the Falsetto Three suitably dressed in black – yes, yours truly making his first appearance at a folk club that led on from the converted garage above!! And the less said about this “debut” probably the better!!  The vicar at the time had come down to sleepy Sandwich from the bright lights and the dingy alleys, indeed Streets of London, where he had set up the famous Crypt Folk Club in the crypt of St Martin’s in the Field on the corner of Trafalgar Square.  So, with a redundant church going spare and using his contacts from “the big smoke” he started Sandwich Folk Club, featuring an amazing first couple of months of artists including the amazing Cheltenham based folk rock group Decameron, whose lead singer was no other that Gloucestershire’s Johnny Coppin (but more of them later), Mike Moran, Keith Pearson, the legendary blues guitarist Davy (later Davey) Graham (he’s playing in my ear as I write!!) and his amazing wife Holly Gwinn-Graham both singing together and booked separately as she is a great performer in her own right.  Indeed, I think I’ll leave the last word, about St Mary’s Church and the Sandwich Folk Club, to her in this section.  But first I must point out a couple of other things, first as the club was in church and run by the local vicar, made it respectable from the point of view of the Headmaster, who incidentally also drunk in the pub next door, which was a bit of a shock one night when I was in for a drink, which we were allowed to take into the club, and came face to face with him across the bar in the other room.  The shock made me feel rather generous and acknowledging him I got the barman to ask if he would like a drink!  He graciously declined, but had the good grace to thank me for the offer next time he saw me in school, and didn’t even mention I was underage and he was also a local JP!!  Also, it was through this club I made good friends with a wonderful couple who I have recently re-contacted after a gap of a lifetime, and you may have read about them in an earlier post – Memories December 2011. Their subsequent friendship also had a profound effect on me, and should they read this I still make the delicious flauties (cheesy potato cakes with added bacon if it could be afforded!) that they served up on numerous occasions!  

But back to Holly, who once invited me and a friend (Chris the guitarist above) into her tiny house, a converted stable suitably called Wee Cottage and served us mint tea sweetened with honey, oh how sophisticated we felt!!  And, like music, taste has time travel properties and I can’t now drink mint tea without being back in Wee Cottage all those years (40ish) ago!!  But of The Sandwich Folk Club, this is what she said on a website I only recently discovered:   “Davey and I moved to Sandwich on New Year's Eve of 1972-73. We had tried to get him a visa to come to the US but couldn't, so I went back to England from the states, and he had found us a home on Bowling Street in Sandwich, a converted stable called "Wee Cottage". Ron commissioned a painting of that little place once, but I don't know who has it. We lived there a year, and it was a pleasant, peaceful time. We had great neighbors and friends, and Davey toured from there while I worked in the community theatre and then helped the local vicar run a folk club in a redundant medieval church called St. Mary's. It had no power, so we lit the place with big vats filled with sand into which we placed many candles. It was always a full house, and very romantic to experience, with the soft lighting and great reverberating sound.” eronrecords.co.uk     

Five o’clock on a Sunday Nite – Redcar, Cleveland:  With many a magical night at The Sandwich Folk Club the seed was sown and I became an avid home listener to folk music, at this time on vinyl on a rather primitive turntable, with integral mono speaker housed in a not too well made wooden box, painted pale blue and I think a “hand me down” from my brother as he progressed in his quest for the ultimate hi-fi system!  Then, later on cassette tapes, how quickly technology moves on!  I also made a point of finding where the nearest folk clubs were to wherever I happened to be.  Having left school by now, in the summer of 1974, I was looking forward to a leisurely time whilst spending little time thinking about what I would seriously do in the future, now that I’d dismissed architecture, veterinary science or ringing the bell on the fire engine as my brother drove, when my father came home one day and said “What are you going to do for the rest of your working life?” to which I casually replied, “I think I might like to be a teacher!”, but remained quite happy to put off the evil moment for the foreseeable future!  He, however, had other ideas and the very next day came back with a large pile of positions, courtesy of an agent with the wonderful name of Gabbitas Thring, working as a supernumerary (which translates as surplus to requirements!) in prep schools the length and breadth of the country, as a great opportunity to try it first and see if indeed that was what I wanted to do!  Before I knew it the summer was over and I had a position in a small prep school in the then somewhat decaying Victorian resort of Saltburn on the north eastern coast of England, and having put my motorbike on the train to York, was flying across the top of the world, well the North York Moors to my new life and the start of the next 35 years as a teacher, with a brief sojourn at University in Leeds and College in York learning how to be a proper teacher, part of the requirement!

Here,  being anything but surplus to requirements and being left not only to teach classes both on my own and also to plan the work, whilst being a live-in junior house master!, my radio proved a godsend, the local stations not only providing a number of folk programmes, but also giving diary dates for the local clubs.  So, it was that I set out one Tuesday, if my memory serves me right, to the local club in Marske-by –the-Sea, held upstairs in The Top House pub, so the radio reliably informed me.  I rode my motorbike the short distance to Marske and down the relatively short high street, passing The Zetland Hotel and the next two pubs, whose names have disappeared in the mists of time, but neither of which were called The Top House and whose names didn’t change despite driving up and down the road a few times and venturing unsuccessfully of the main drag.  Disappointingly, not only was The Top House nowhere to be seen, the place also appeared to be totally deserted, not a sole to enquire about said folk club.  Eventually, I spied a figure in black skulking alone the road, well wrapped up against the cold and now rather drizzly dark night, hurrying home with what appeared to be his fish and chip supper, which he had mysterious purchased for somewhere, no glowing emporium of fine British cuisine either in sight or within olfactory recognition distance (smell!).  I pulled over and in those days it wasn’t necessary to remove your helmet before talking to someone and although at first he might of thought he was about to be mugged for his supper, he quickly warmed to my predicament and pointed to the first pub at the bottom of the street, and with a chuckle said The Bottom House, then The Middle House and finally The Zetland Hotel, known to all locally as The Top House!!

In need by now of a drink, I made my way into the bar of the rather grandly named hotel, purchased a pint and enquired about the folk club and was shown the door, no not thrown out, but pointed in the direction of a plain smoke stained door, which I discovered led up a narrow staircase to a small landing on which two doors were situated one clearly marked PRIVATE, the other not marked at all, but from behind which came the welcome sound of folk singing.  Tentatively opening the door, I was confronted with what I later came to know as a traditional sing-a-round, a large room in the middle of which was a large circle of chair, if they hadn’t been facing inwards they would have looked like a giant game of musical chairs.  Then, as the singing finished I was publicly welcomed by Dave the organiser and invited to join the circle, on one of the few empty chairs, as it was now a little late having had difficulties finding the place.

But the singing, largely unaccompanied with only a few instruments apparent, was great and I felt comfortable and in the company of new friends all with a vested interest, until rather uncomfortably I realised that the songs were coming around the circle, and as one person’s applause died down, it was the turn of the next person along to sing, and everyone seemed to be taking their turn!!  As the “baton” got closer and closer, I wondered about a hasty exit saying sorry I’ve made a big mistake or could I muster more than just the Falsetto Three chorus of the Monster Mash, although quickly dismissing this as perhaps being a little modern in such a traditional setting!  Fortunately, I was saved in the nick of time by a person a couple of chairs from me who politely, when it was their turn, said “Not tonight thanks” and passed the baton on to the next performer!  Phew, barely before the applause had died for the person next to me I blurted out the saviour phrase “Not tonight thanks” breathing a sigh of relief and able once more to enjoy myself, secure in the knowledge even if the “baton” came around again I had excused myself for the evening.

 So far so good, but returning week after week, I realised that perhaps my first public utterance should possibly have been “Actually, I don’t sing I’m just here to listen to the wonderful rich talent around me!”  A bit of flannel in those early days wouldn’t have gone amiss, but in hindsight would have meant my singing career would have finished with the dying chords of Monster Mash, way down south the previous year and then maybe none of this would have been written!

So, as the weeks went past I became more and more self conscious that my excuse, presupposed that actually one night I might actually take my turn and increasingly Dave started to say things like “OK maybe next week” or more pointedly “I’m sure it will be worth waiting for!”  I eventually resolved that I would have to at least give it a go and then either come clean that actually I didn’t sing, or it be so apparent that I wasn’t asked again!!  I scoured my meagre collection for something that was neither too long, too wordy or too complicated a melody and hit on a rather sad little song about a watercress seller who would each Sunday night visit a mining community to sell his wares to help feed his family, only for the miners to go out on strike and therefore not have enough money for the watercress, despite him returning hopefully each week.  The night arrived and I had it clear in my head – melody, words and perhaps the Dutch courage that a pint or two brings, despite the courage waning rapidly as the songs crept around the circle nearer and nearer to me.  Perhaps, worried I would bottle out again at the last moment, Dave had collared me at the beginning of the evening and ascertained that indeed tonight was the night.  Well, my time came and went and I certainly didn’t feel I had conquered, despite the rousing applause and Dave’s kind words, largely in both cases being I felt polite as I had finally done it.  Dave also said, I thought at the time as a cunning ploy to get me to sing again, “I’ve not heard that one before; perhaps you’ll do it again next week.”  I haven’t thought it before tonight but maybe Dave was a teacher and well versed in encouraging reluctant and nervous students, but still rather reluctantly I agreed to sing it again the following week, as well as promising to learn it properly, as I was still sure that he had obviously heard it before, but just didn’t recognise my rendition of the song “Five o’clock on a Sunday nite.”

I practised long and hard that week, both determined to “do better next time” but also because I found I was enjoying it!  I arrived at The Top House, good and early now I knew where it was and sat in the circle as confident as I could be that I would make a better job of the song this week.  That was until just before I took a deep breath and was about to strike the first note, somewhat crucial with unaccompanied singing, and I noticed in the gloom of the room and through the smoke, as this was well before any smoking ban, Dave turn to the piano in the corner behind him, press something on a small box and none to successfully try to conceal a microphone sticking out from under his arm.  Thrown, by what I had seen I soldiered on through the song, possibly better that last time, and when later I asked Dave about the illicit recording, he said as it was a song he didn’t know he wanted the words and thought it best not to worry me and put me off!!!  I wonder where that recording is now, maybe if I hit the big time this time around and “This is Your Life” returns to our screens, some diligent researcher just might ....!

I did however, meet Dave several years later, on a return to the folk club in Redcar, just down the road and long after I had left the area for pastures new.  I hadn’t had a chance to speak to Dave before my “floor spot” came up before the main act for the evening, who I have just recalled from some distant memory vault, was no other than the well known singer, banjo player, writer, broadcaster, VW Campervan enthusiast and rambler Mike Harding, before he sung Rochdale Cowboy on Top of the Pops sitting on a small toy horse, which he likened in later acts to a stuffed Alsatian dog!!  I sung “Five o’clock on a Sunday nite”, which I dedicated, without giving the title, to Dave who knew what I was going to sing before the first note.  On the happy reunion afterwards he had to agree I had come on somewhat since those early days, upstairs in The Top House.  Dave, I suppose, has a lot to answer for as it was really him who encouraged me to have a go, and the rest is

To be continued ......!