Ouch!

The Lambton Worm

The main story at this week's session was the death this week of our good friend, banjo player and singer, Betty. Her funeral will be on 28 October 2014 at 12 noon at Westerleigh Crematorium.

Another important announcement was that two recent sessions: Harvest and the celebration of the life of Pat Hyett had between them raised £110 for St Peter's Hospice. Thanks go to everyone who attended those sessions and contributed to that fine total.

We were pleased to see a large number of visitors, some of whom have been recently, some new faces, and one long absent friend of Maggie's who has promised to come again.

Mike started us off with When yellow's on the broom (Adam MacNaughtan) which he learnt from Betty. Later Mike sang another song which he had learnt from Betty and Norman: Byker Hill. Simon wasn't able to sing any of Betty's songs but noted that she sang several of Jean Ritchie's songs, and proceeded to sing another, The L&N don't stop here anymore.

While Richard didn't specifically mention connections with Betty, he sang two appropriately North Eastern songs (NE of England, that is). His first was Lambton worm (Roud 2337, written by Clarence M Leumane in 1867), and he went on to sing The clog dancer.

John, who is becoming a regular at the Dragon Folk Club brought with him a number of friends, including Chris and Rebecca who brought with them a song from their Canadian homeland: Log driver's waltz (Wade Hemsworth).

Nick paid his first visit, at least in a very long time, to the club, encouraged by Robin, who himself was making his first visit since being away stewarding most Fridays during the folk festival season. It turned out that Nick was a friend of Maggie's from long ago and on this reunion Nick sang Girl from the hiring fair (Ralph McTell) and a Dave Holden song, Napoleon Bonaparte. Unfortunately at the interval Nick fell over on a wet floor in the bar and hurt himself (ouch!). His rescuer was the Salvation Army lady who had arrived to sell War Cry. Nick reasonably retired early to look after his injury at home.

Someone else who hadn't been seen at the club for a while was Alan, who sang Early morning rain (Gordon Lightfoot), and a very short song from the singing of Fred Wedlock.

As sometimes happens I received a challenge this week to identify a song, and it was one sung by Richard. The title was Driving home and it was a parody of John Tams' When we go rolling home. This video is the same song with the sole exception that it refers to the singer being a "morris man" rather than a "folk club singer".

The final song of the evening came from Mike and was Rolling home.

Here's a selection of the songs sung during the session.

(Number of people present - 19, of which 14 performed)