Burns' Night 2017

reconstructed head of Burns

Finally a respectable quorum for this year's Burns' Night session. That is it was our Burns and Scotland themed session which took place two days after Burns' Night. In fact the attendance was so numerous that it even deserved three raffle prizes!

As always at The Dragon Folk Club, the theme was optional, so there was plenty of variety. Colin was MC and he started off proceedings with a comic offering from Captain Beaky: The Haggis Season (Jeremy Lloyd, Jim Parker).

I won't get into the debate about which songs and poems Robert Burns wrote, which he collected and which he stole, so please read anything in this blog post which claims to be by Burns as being any one of those options.

Roger recited The Banks O' Doon (Roud 13889 - Robert Burns) as a poem and Chris gave us the Eriskay Love Lilt (I grew up to that version by Judith Durham).

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers

photo by Hamish McConnochie

Many of us were afraid that the above words, famously used by Henry V on his last visit to the club (in those days still at Iron Acton) would be needed to describe this week's meeting, given that regulars Mike, Maggie S, Colin, Simon and Martin Carthy were all away on jaunts.

But happily a respectable 8 (7 singers) appeared and when Roger appropriately for the time of year sang Kurt Weill's September Song it was merely the days, not the audience, which had 'dwindled down to a precious few.'

Stories, disasters and adventures

Donibristle disaster memorial

This week Maggie 1 brought along a thank you letter from BUST for the money raised at Maggie 2's birthday session on 26 July. As previously announced, we raised a total of £52.65.

Mike kicked off the session with Drink old England dry.

This weeks' new face was Colin (yes, we had two Colins) who regaled us with stories strange and wonderful, and often funny. It wouldn't be polite or particularly useful to recount his stories here, but one went something like this.