New Year 2019

Whittenham Clumps, Oxfordshire, New Year's Day 2000
(Photo: Simon Meeds)

Happy New Year to everyone, and indeed that was our theme for last Friday's Dragon Folk Club session. This week there will be no pre-planned theme, nor next week, but that will then bring us to 25 January and Burns' Night!

Last week Colin was MC and started the evening off with Rothesay-o (Roud 2142) which starts "One Hogmanay at Glesca Fair".

Steve C made on of his semi-regular appearances and started his contribution with the seasonal The Snow It Melts The Soonest (Roud 3154). Simon was nervous about pulling the rug from under Mike by singing The January Man (Dave Goulder) but Mike encouraged him to sing it.

Happy New Year - 2018

Jacques Brel, 1963

Six wasn't a bad turn-out for the first Dragon Folk Club session of 2018. Everyone sang and there was a reasonable number of seasonal songs, whether that was New Year, Twelfth Night or the sequence of the year. Next week's session (12 January) will be without a theme but be ready later in the month for 26 January which is our nearest session to Burns Night.

Back to last Friday, Colin was MC and he started us off with Bob Zentz's At The End Of Another Year.

Mike's first contribution was Richard Thompson's We'll Sing Hallelujah (at the turning of the year).

Terry C made his first appearance at the club for a while and very welcome it was too. He said he didn't have any seasonal songs but Brown Photographs (John Meeks, Colin Radcliffe) certainly acknowledged the passing of time.

Derek took us to Orkney for A New Year's Carol (Roud 4584). Simon was afraid of stepping on toes with one of his two appropriate songs, but sang it anyway and Mike said he had had no intention of singing Dave Goulder's January Man.

New Year and matters arising

Wren (photo by Alden Chadwick)

It was a perfectly respectable turnout for the first session of 2016. We had been promised songs on themes to cover the whole period between Christmas and 8 January, which is pretty much what we got.

Colin was MC and he asked Derek to start us off. Derek said he had to start off in his traditional way with Miner's Dream of Home (Roud 1749) - "For the bells were ringing the old year out, And the new year in".