FOLK SESSION – Howard Arms, Brampton

Thank you to all those who braved darkness and sleet to join us to make music around the theme of ‘fire’ on 18^th November.  A warm welcome to Richard Harris, joining us for the first time, and welcome back to Sally and Richard Hardaker.

It was a pleasure to have no fewer than three instrumentalists, John G on mouth organ; Sally Hardaker on flute and recorder, and Adrian on melodeon, all of whom found fire-related tunes.  John G played us the jigs Little Burnt Potatoes; The Fiery Clock Face; Blazing Turf and Pipe on the Hob, plus a hornpipe, Smoky Chimney.  Adrian, using the time-honoured oblique approach, played Ladder Hill ‘because firemen use ladders’!  Sally gave us Chimney Bird; Small Coals and Little Money (both on recorder) and Crooked Stove Pipe (flute).

A number of contributions linked the theme to Remembrance Day last week - Geoff P urged us, Wear Your Poppy with Pride, while Ron (vocals) and Linda (cahone) reminded us to Keep the Home Fires Burning.  Jane and Anne used ‘fire’ in another sense – the narrator of Normandy (Jane), wondered how his father had felt ‘under enemy fire’, and Anne grieved for the men who were shot by firing squad during the First World War (Jesus Wept).  Adrian took us to another war, another century, firing a broadside at the time of The Death of Nelson.

 As this is folk music we’re talking about, perhaps it’s not surprising that crime, cruelty and catastrophe did seem to dominate.  We heard about arson: A Church is Burning (Gary); Little Tim McGuire (Sally Jones); and the 16^th Century Burning of Auchindoun (Richard Hardaker).  William Taylor (Chris) died at the hand of his jilted sweetheart who ‘fired and shot’ him. Deeply disturbing was the death of Bonny Susie Cleland (Phil), burned for refusing to renounce her English lover.  Catastrophes included fire by land and sea: Sally Jones and Ron and Linda sang different versions of Fire Down Below; Gary’s Ballad of the Yarmouth Castle told of a 1965 maritime tragedy; while Geoff P’s Gresford Disaster was about the worst mining disaster in British history.  In the midst of so much that was sombre, there was a sprinkling of tongue-in-cheek crises When the Old Dun Cow Caught Fire (Adrian); when the firemen arrived at The School Nativity Play (Phil); not to mention Charles’ recitation of Belloc’s cautionary tale about Matilda, Who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death. 

 So let us turn to symbolic fires: Richard Harris warned us that This Wheel’s on Fire; Gerda sang about uniting to overthrow oppression If There’s a Fire in Your Heart; and Jane’s Motherless Child has a ‘soul on fire’.  Charles and John L both used fire as a metaphor for passion, in, respectively, Burn and When You Shook Your Long Hair Down.  The fire in Alan’s haunting Prisoner of Consciousness is literal but loaded with emotional meaning, as the protagonist can ‘see dancing flames, hear crackling logs’ but is unable to turn his head to look at them.

Life-giving, light-giving, celebratory or just plain useful fires also featured.  The young cowboy sits by his fire (Sweet Baby James – Alan); the dying lamp and fire contribute to the gentle melancholy of Song for a Winter’s Night (Richard Harris); making a fire and cooking over it is comfort in hard times (No Woman, No Cry – John L); the farmer returns to candlelight and fireside at the Day’s End (Anne) and the Highlander is homesick for the Peat Fire Flame (Katy).  Gerda will ‘build a fire and watch it burn’ (Lay My Heart). The servants of Edmondthorpe Hall celebrate Christmas with bonfires and decorations, in Chris’s story The Witch of Edmondthorpe.  And to underline the usefulness of fire, Are You Right, Now, Michael? (Richard Hardaker), includes a steam train that doesn’t go because the fire won’t burn!

We next meet on Tuesday, 16^th December in the Howard Arms, Brampton, at 8pm. The theme will be ‘Light and Darkness’.  ALL WELCOME!