Presidential Inauguration

The Mayor of Trumpton

A sadly low turn-out again for last week's session but at least we were five in the first half of the evening and there was some interesting back and forth of ad hoc themes. There was no official theme but this Wednesday is Burns' Night, so this Friday's theme (27 January) is all things Scottish or Burns - your presence is required.

The most popular mini-theme last week was the inauguration of President Trump. Some songs were thought appropriate and others were simply modified to fit. Colin was MC.

Steve C started the evening off with Old Shep (Red Foley). It was the song Elvis Presley sang at his first public performance, aged 10 on 3 October 1945 at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show.

Stories, songs and not-so-shaggy dogs

Elder Joseph Brackett

This week's count of humans was pretty good at twelve, and our number was indeed swelled by the presence of three canines. Apart from the usual Indy, we were joined by both Gerty and Freddie who seemed to mainly successfully show Indy a good example for folk session canine etiquette.

Richard was the MC and started off the evening himself with The Day The Pub Burned Down (RG "Bob" Edwards), which is a sort of New Zealand version of The Old Dun Cow (Roud 5323).

Derek correctly challenged me to be unsuccessful at finding a version of his first song on You Tube, it being Wardley's Great White Wall (note that the linked item is written by Derek himself), the song sung at the start of the last shift at Wardley Colliery, which had to shut down when the coal seam finished in a wall of chalk. Derek got the song from Dave Douglass, who worked at Wardley and who Derek thinks may have written the song.Derek was actually singing the song to mark the closure of Hatfield Main Colliery where Douglass later worked.

Raffle discussions

The Liver Building, Liverpool

Tonight's session had no theme. Apart from a selection of regulars, we were joined by Paul, who was at the session two weeks ago, performing in public for the first time in twenty years. A first-time visitor was John who was known to Robin and Derek.

At one stage the topic of conversation turned to raffles, and in particular folk club raffles. John said that he is very unlucky with raffles and the last but one time he won one was in the 1960s. The prize on that occasion was a 45rpm record of the Maple Leaf Four singing Old Shep. Derek told of a folk club which was sponsored by a butcher, and the raffle prize was always a huge tray of meat - not much good to him as a vegetarian! He proceeded to sing a song about "A ticket for the meat draw".