FOLK SESSION – Howard Arms, Brampton
We were sorry to miss several of our regular contributors, when we met on 19th May to make music and merriment over the subject of ‘Placenames’, but we were delighted to see Kath and Geoff B, returning to us like migrating summer swallows.
Last month’s review reminded all partakers in the session that it’s not a competition, chaps! which (surprise!) seems to have acted as a stimulus! So, to give (dis)credit where (dis)credit is due: Phil did the circuit of 23 named towns in A View from One-Night Stands; John L found references to 18 place-names in Sweet Thames, Flow Softly; A Dalesman’s Litany (Sally) specified 14 places one wouldn’t like to live; Richard wandered All Over Mendip, taking in a town, nine villages and a range of hills; and the D-Day Dodgers (Sally) listed six Italian battlefields as they fought their way from Salerno to Rome.
In size, the places named ranged from streets and hamlets to entire countries. To start at the smaller end: we heard about destitution on Bleecker Street (Gary); about shenanigans on Barrack Street (John G); about Bethnal Street where Rosemary’s Sister was killed in the Blitz (Gary); and about the homing pigeon, The King of Rome, that found its way back to Brook Street in Derby (Jane). Songs and tunes were dedicated to hamlets - Bewcastle (John L); Coshieville (Phil); Snod’s Edge and Summerhill (tunes by John G on harmonica); and a tiny Hebridean island (Eriskay Love Lilt – Linda). Very specific indeed was Richard’s Arlington -a song set in America’s famous military cemetery.
Moving up to villages and towns, Adrian gave us The Rigs of Marlow and Star of Wheatley on melodeon; Linda uttered her lament from The Fields of Athenry; a young man falls in love at Oranmore with a girl in a Galway Shawl (Jane); and we were warned away from Seghill (Blackleg Miner – John G). We visited Brampton in Geoff B’s poem Hiking and the graveyard at Bellingham in Chris’s Legend of the Long Pack. Gary sang in praise of The Bridge at Knaresborough Town, while Adrian commemorated the Threescore and Ten fishermen of Grimsby who died in the gale of 1889.
And so on to larger settlements still: Chris complained I Can’t Find Brummagem; John L took us on an eerie journey from Macclesfield to meet The Wizard of Alderley Edge; Kath and Geoff B complained of hunger and poverty in Hartlepool (Sea Coal); Katy praised The Wonderful Derby Ram; Chris went dancing in Manchester (The Calico Printer’s Clerk), whereas Adrian’s Manchester Rambler longed to get away from the same city!
And finally, there was Abroad. Ron’s Cousin Jack considered emigration to New Brunswick or Australia; Kath and Geoff B marched us Over the Hills and Far Away to ‘Flanders, Portugal and Spain’; Sally recommended Donkey Riding in Quebec; Ron’s soldier sailed from Portsmouth to The Malvinas; Jane told of tragedy on the Tallahatchie Bridge (Ode to Billie Joe); and Phil’s Ballad of Clifford Lawther saw the hero leave Hexham to fight and die in the Valley of Jarama in the Spanish Civil War.
We next meet on Tuesday, 16th June at 8pm in The Howard Arms, Brampton. The theme – a tricky one – is ‘boundaries’. Walls; hedges; dykes; fences; ditches; borders between countries or counties; ‘Marcher’ lords – be creative! ALL WELCOME!