Somewhat unconventional

USS Portsmouth

It is advertised on this blog that Dragon Folk Club starts at 8:15pm when in fact it's not a secret that the music rarely gets going much before 8:30pm. The earlier time is however useful because you can pretty much guarantee that the regulars start drifting in around then, so a visitor will not be left wondering for long whether they are at the right pub. I mention this because I arrived at around my usual time to find Derek already in full flow.

Apparently the story was that Richard, who was MC for the night, was so shocked by the early arrival of Colin that he accidentally kicked off the session by trying to sing Farewell To Grog. I'll come to the song later but suffice to say that at this stage something went wrong and Richard barely got started before he had to give up and hand over to Derek who sang The Water Is Wide (Roud 87, Child 204).

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.

Do you feel like a challenge?

The landing place at Rockstone from which the start
to the gold fields at the Essequibo River is made

We were a small but pretty enthusiastic band last week. Early conversations ranged through subjects relating to funerals and crematoria. This isn't perhaps as unusual as you would think, given that Mike works at the crematorium close to our venue and Richard also frequently finds himself at such premises in a professional capacity.

Our resident canine, Indy, was in fine voice and his timing does seem to be improving. During the singing of at least three songs I noticed him coming in perfectly on cue: variously as a wailing ghost, a howling dog and a baying wolf when the lyric required it.

One song to the tune of another

The cast of Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue in 2010

First an important parish announcement: there will be no Dragon Folk Club Session this week (7 August 2015). The next session will be on Friday 14 August. There is nothing sinister behind this. The New Inn where we meet has a "big do" on 7th. They offered us space on Saturday evening but after some consideration we decided just to have a week off. Sorry if you are visiting Bristol this week and were hoping to come along. If you are resident in the area or staying a few nights you may like to consider going along to the Chipping Sodbury Folk Night on Thursday 6 at the Beaufort Hunt, Chipping Sodbury. CSFN meets on the first Thursday of every month and kicks off at 8pm. It is usually quite popular so an early arrival is advised in order to be sure of a seat.

Now for the report on last week's session. Quite frequently we have a themed night but apart from ad hoc themes that emerge informally, the only official themes we have are usually calendar based (Christmas, Burns' Night, St George, Andrew, David or Patrick, and so on). Last week's session however was an exception, being "One Song To The Tune Of Another". It's an idea borrowed from Radio 4's programme, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. Understandably, not everyone present was able to follow the theme but nevertheless it was pretty successful.