St Andrew's Day 2024 (with added Lancashire)

The Lancashire Fusilier pulling
The Jacobite (Hogwarts Express)
over the Glenfinnan Viaduct
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Last week's Dragon Folk Club session was officially themed for St Andrew's Day. Saint Andrew is patron saint of Scotland among many other things. However Denny asked us also to consider that it was the week of Lancashire Day, her native county, and therefore that was a secondary theme.

Before getting down to business, it's worth pointing out that this week's Dragon session (6th December) will be themeless before we make the big move to Christmas on 13th, and have a premature Christmas leftovers (turkey curry, etc.) session on 20th. 27th December will be a very rare Friday of rest for the Dragon before we come back with a bang for New Year and a slightly early Twelfth Night on 3rd January. It's important to note that our themes are always optional and therefore anything goes at the Dragon as long as it's acoustic.

Back to last Friday, we had a variety of approaches. Colin and Paul stuck with Scotland, while Denny concentrated on Lancashire and Simon alternated between the two. Remember that Lancashire was considered to be the traditional county which includes places no longer in it such as Liverpool, Manchester and Salford.

Colin, MC as usual, started off with Dougie MacLean's Ready for the storm. Simon started off with a song which he obtained from a Scottish source (Scotch Measure, Jim and Sylvia Barnes), but which he has hear attributed not only to Scotland, but also to Ireland and even to Lancashire! The song is The handweaver and the factory maid (roud 17771).

Paul remained firmly north of the border with A Scottish soldier (Andy Stewart) and Denny comlpeted the first rotation in Lancashire with a monologue: The lion and Albert (Marriott Edgar). Edgar was in fact born in Scotland, but his father and two aunts were born in Lancashire, so this actually hits both themes.

At this stage I'll say that unusually there were no additions to the Dragon database this week, and there was only one song not to be found on YouTube, and therefore not in the playlist linked from "a selection" below. That lone song is The pickled herring man (Cathy Wallis).

I could end this report there and fast forward to the last song of the evening, which indeed came slightly earlier than usual when the pub closed prematurely. Presumably the closure was due to lack of customers, and we might have predicted it would be so since all of us managed to park on the pub forecourt when we arrived: a very uncommon occurrence.

Nevertheless, let's have a look first at a handful of our other notable performances of the evening - not that all are not notable.

Paul referred to his apparently fictional collection of Judith Durham records before singing The Eriskay Love Lilt. [Ed: I have some albeit from my father's collection, but I definitely grew up with The Seekers on the record player]

Denny revisited to the plight of a small boy in Blackpool with Albert's return (Marriott Edgar).

In The Hielan' man perhaps Colin selected one of the rarer songs of the evening, and one with its own challenges to the researcher being from the pen of Scotsman Matt McGinn, not to be confused with the Irish Matt McGinn or the American Matt McGinn, or indeed the English Matt McGinn.

Simon warned before singing Mike Harding's Small high window (a Lancashire contribution) that he might end up drifting into too higher key. In the end he admitted that the actual problem was more one of over-compensation and signing in his boots.

After a request from the pub staff to finish quickly there was a hasty last round which finished with Denny singing Icy Acres (Colin Wilkie).

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

(Number of people present - 4 of whom 4 performed)

The pub with no beer

IMPORTANT NOTE: We are hoping there will be a Dragon Folk Club session this Friday (15th September 2023), but we're not certain at the moment. This isn't because of the current situation with the pub (see below - which should have improved by Friday), but because some of our key members may not be available due to family matters. I will post an update here later in the week, so keep watching, and mark us in your diary anyway in expectation that all will be well.

Last week at The Bridge was interesting... hmmm. True, there was only one singer present, and true he did sing sixteen songs - you'll have to trust him on that. But stranger, there were no bar staff and no beer. Wait, that's not quite as bad as it sounds. Apparently The Bridge's faithful regular drinker, Allie, turned up and found nothing happening. She asked what it was about and was told there were no staff, so she volunteered to work behind the bar, and a pretty good job she did of it - friendly and warm as always, and seemed to know what she was doing. According to Allie the beer had not been ordered, so not only was there no Doom Bar (shock, horror), but no other beer on tap nor even in bottles and cans. However there were several ciders, which did the job for one lonely singer, even if the effect was a slightly burpy (TMI?) rendition of some songs - maybe best that there was no one to hear.

Simon started, continued and finished the session, so I won't bother to add too much detail to this report, but in the process he sang loudly in case someone passing the door on their way into the gents heard and felt moved to wander in (they didn't), and he sang some songs rarely sung by him, and some rarely in the club. There was only one song new to the Dragon database which I have marked below with an asterisk (*), and even that was certainly not new to the club, just not previously electronically recorded.

Here is the complete list.

• Margarita (Harvey Andrews)
• Small High Window (Mike Harding)
• City of New Orleans (Steve Goodman)
• Bully in the Alley (roud 8287)
• The World Turned Upside Down (Leon Rosselson)
• Portobello Road (Cat Stevens/Yusuf, Kim Fowley)
• Cousin Jack (Steve Knightley)
• The Boxer * (Paul Simon)
• And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda (Eric Bogle)
• The Gambler (Don Schlitz)
• The January Man (Dave Goulder)
• Martin Said to his Man (roud 473)
• The Mighty Quinn (Bob Dylan)
• Summertime (DuBose Heyward, George Gershwin, Ira Gershwin)
• The Tailor's Breeches (roud 1610)
• This Land is Your Land (roud 16378, Woody Guthrie)

I think that a pretty eclectic one-man performance. It's just a pity there was no one to hear it.

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

(Number of people present - 1 of whom 1 performed)

Incomplete recall

We were back to a skeleton staff at the Dragon Folk Club last Friday, but we had a good evening nevertheless. This week we will be one core man down - Colin, our usual MC - so all being well Simon will be MCing. Please make an effort to come along and sing, play, tell a story or even just listen.

Back to last week, MC Colin started us off with Stung Right with words by Joe Hill. The tune (written by by Winfield S Weeden) comes from an evangelical hymn called Sunlight, sunlight (words by Judson W Van De Venter) and was later used by Ewan MacColl for Browned off. Stung right was a new one for my database, but Colin had sung here it before.

Mike sang two songs which can both be known as Tom's gone to Hilo: Tom's gone to Hilo (roud 481) and Johnny come down to Hilo (roud 650). Simon didn't remember having heard roud 481 before, but Mike assured him he had previously sung it here.

Colin didn't remember Simon having previously sung Mike Harding's A small high window though he had done so.

Simon finished the evening slightly early since we were the only people in the pub and the staff wanted to close. It's always good to close with a joiner-inner. In this case The Galway Shawl (roud 2737).

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

(Number of people present - 3 of whom 3 performed)

The bag of wind

(Photo: Marco Verch)

Last week's session was a bit thin on the ground for bodies but with some ad hoc themes we made it a worthwhile evening. Being the start of the football World Cup, "the beautiful game" (let me go off and be sick for a moment) and Russia were obvious candidates.

Colin, being MC, started us off with The Old Man Who lived In The Woods (Roud 281, Laws Q1).

Derek was the first to address the subject of the bag of wind with Little Sir Hugh (Roud 73, Child 155) - "...the lads of merry Lincoln, when they play at the ball".