St David's Day 2026

Llwyn Celyn, Cwmyoy, Monmouthshire
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

It was that time of year to celebrate St David and by association to sing songs with some connection, however tenuous, with Wales or the Welsh. Bearing in mind that our singers had less notice than usual of the theme, and some hardly any notice at all, we didn't do too badly. As sometimes happens, some songs had their words mangled to fit, but we didn't quite get to the point of singing of whaling songs!

It was good to see Heather again, as usual with her non-singing companion Hazel. We did however have a newcomer to the Dragon. Angela has been following us on Facebook for a while and while she didn't perform, she was definitely seen singing along and should she return, which we hope she does, I suspect she may find something to sing now she knows we are a friendly audience.

Colin, MC as usual, started the ball rolling on theme with Hob y deri dando.

Heather's first song was The bunch of thyme (roud 3).

Simon referred to Welsh traditional singer Phil Tanner before singing The Gower wassail song (roud 209).

Paul sang When Jones's ale was new (roud 139), an English song which has its origins in the 16th century.

Denny brought the first rotation to a close with the much more modern Day trip to Bangor (Debbie Cook), a song which appears to tell the story of a seaside trip to Bangor in North Wales, which while in a coastal position is not renowned as a resort. Rumours spread that the song was inspired by a trip to Rhyl, 30 miles East along the coast, but "Rhyl" didn't scan and was replaced, much to the angst of the councillors of that town. Cook however stated that the song was specifically written about Bangor.

The only song of the evening not found on YouTube and therefore not included in the linked playlist was Colin's Children born to the valleys (# Dawson Smith). The song was included on a frustratingly elusive album of songs based the epic Welsh novels of Alexander Cordell.

There were just two songs sung during the evening which were new to the Dragon database. The first was The jovial man of Kent (*), sung by Paul to the same tune as When Jones's ale was new. This song was written by Charles Dibdin (1745-1814).

The other "new" song came from Heather and was Caravan song (*) written by Mike Batt for the 1978 film Caravans in which it was sung by Barbara Dickson.

The evening was finished by Colin singing the unofficial national anthem of Wales, Land of my fathers (Evan James, James James).

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

(Number of people present - 7 of whom 5 performed)

In the above report songs new to the Dragon database (though no always new to the club) are marked with an asterisk (*) and any songs not included in the "a selection" playlist are marked with a hash (#).