Halloween 2015

Stanton Drew stone circle
(photo: Simon Meeds)

So, after last week's session the handover has officially been made. Maggie has retired from running the club and Colin is the new master: holder of "the book" and the money bag (sometimes affectionately called "the scrotum"), which Mike made forty years ago. We hope and believe that Mike and Maggie will still be regulars at the club but this move takes some of the responsibility from Maggie's shoulders which she has borne for so long.

The themes this week were Halloween and Australia/New Zealand (being the finalists in the Rugby World Cup). I think almost all, if not all songs met the former theme and a couple gave a nod to the latter.

Colin was MC and asked Mike to start us off and his first song was The Devil In York (Tim Brooks).

Lesley's first song was Harry Eddom (Bill Meek) which tells the story of the trawler Ross Cleveland and its mate, Harry Eddom who was the only survivor when the boat went down in the Hull Triple Trawler Tragedy of 1968. It was thought that all of the crew were lost until Eddom was discovered a day after he was washed ashore in a life raft, the other two having died in the same raft before reaching land.

Colin managed to include two songs about the same story. The story is the myth that there was a wedding at Stanton Drew in Somerset, held on the Sabbath. When the local musicians refused to play, the devil in disguise played his fiddle. In the end the devil turned the wedding guests to stone and they became the famous Stanton Drew stone circle. The two songs were The Wedding At Stanton Drew (Colin Reece) and Dancers Of Stanton Drew (Jim Parker and Muriel Holland).

Derek offered to sing any of the songs he knew about death. Richard requested the shortest one but Derek said he had stopped singing that because Richard himself sings it. He couldn't remember the name. After some backwards and forwards it was Mike who came up with the name - The Unquiet Grave (Roud 51, Child 78) but Richard couldn't remember ever having sung it, though both Derek and Mike swore he had. So, being thus firmly back in Derek's repertoire, he sung it. Similarly, since after a few rounds Derek still hadn't sung She Moved Through The Fair (Roud 861), Simon claimed it for himself.

We had at least three songs usually associated with Steeleye Span: Simon sang Boys Of Bedlam (music by Nic Jones and Dave Moran), Richard sang Thomas The Rhymer (Roud 219, Child 37) and the closing song of the evening from Colin was The Twelve Witches.

The official theme this Friday (6 October 2015) is Campfire Songs in recognition that it is our closest session to 5th November but you might also like also to consider songs relating to New Zealand following the All Blacks' victory in the Rugby World Cup.

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

(Number of people present - 7, of which 6 performed)