A military hang-over

North flank of Kinder Scout

A reasonable turn-out this week included a long-awaited return by Paul, who has moved slightly further away from us and hadn't previously joined us at our current venue. There was no theme although Derek found himself singing military songs all evening for no particular reason except that the songs of other people inspired him.

Colin was MC and Mike started off the evening with Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire (Roud 9618), which he had failed to sing the previous week for remembrance.

Richard sang McAlpine's Fusiliers (Dominic Behan) which inspired Derek to sing the Texaco Fusiliers about the First Gulf War to the same tune.

Steve G got in two songs by John Smith: Great Lakes and Salty And Sweet.

Simon sang Mary McCloud's House Of The Rising Damp, whose mention of "the whisky tastes like turpentine" inspired Derek to sing Gee, I Want To Go Home; I suspect that Derek wouldn't exactly call it that, and this version refers to iodine rather than turpentine but I guess it's an American thing.

Colin seemed to have left for the evening his usual stamping ground of England's South West for the North West: I Wish I Was Back In Liverpool (Stan Kelly-Bootle and Leon Rosselson), and The Manchester Rambler (Ewan McColl). Mike pointed out though that in the latter he missed out the verse which made the point of the song, about the Kinder Trespass in which McColl participated.

Paul gave us some of his own tunes, as usual often decorated with titles made up in the moment, such as The Fantastic Four's Summer In Somerset remembering time spent with nephews and nieces, and Housing, Jobs, Pasties And Emmets, inspired by his brother's abortive attempt to move to Cornwall. He also exercised his vocal chords with an obviously new song about the November 2015 Paris attacks which he called Any Given City given that, while the words described things he had seen on the news coming from the French capital, they could have come from anywhere where such atrocities might have happened.

Richard continued his occasional series of songs from the singing of Rambling Syd Rumpo (Kenneth Williams) with The Black Grunger Of Hounslow (Barry Took and Marty Feldman).

Since canine folky, Indy was getting restless, Mike felt the need to sing something loud and gave us Sally Racket (Roud 395).

Steve C's last offering was Cyril Tawney's Sammy's Bar and Simon finished off the evening with We'll Rant And We'll Roar (Roud 687).

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

(Number of people present - 8, of which 8 performed)