Alan Mitchell - RIP

Alan Mitchell finally succumbed to his cancer at his home on 30 December 2015.

In spite of being confined to a wheelchair in recent months, he never stopped attending folk clubs. A long-time regular at The Dragon Folk Club, his last appearance was at Maggie Starkey's 'Retirement Bash' on the 4 December when he performed Runcorn Ferry ('Per tuppence, per person, per trip'), one of the many Marriott Edgar monologues in his repertoire, and in his treasured volume of Edgar's works. For those who wish to be reminded of Alan's dry, witty delivery, there is film of his reciting this monologue on Terry Helyar's YouTube pages (see YouTube playlist embedded below).

Besides the Dragon, he was also a regular at the Nova, Crossed Hands, Somerville, Salt Cellar, Bath, and many more clubs beside, all over the Bristol area. And as well as the monologues he accompanied himself on guitar with a range of songs from the traditional Dalesman's Litany to Roger Davies' Brighouse on a Saturday Night via Guthrie's Los Gatos Canyon.

Christmas 2015

Photo by macinate at Flickr

We were quite thin on the ground for our Christmas session, partly perhaps because it was slightly earlier than usual and partly because it was lower key, having had the mega-bash for Maggie's retirement the week before.

Important news, also posted elsewhere is that there will be no Dragon Folk Club sessions on 18 or 25 December, nor on 1 January, when the New Inn is closed. So we will be back and raring to go on 8 January 2016 when themes could range from Boxing Day, through New Year and Twelfth Night to, well, anything you fancy. Just please be there to see the old year out, albeit belatedly, and welcome the new year in.

Maggie's retirement bash

Maggie S

Maggie S arrived to last week's session, mince pies in hand, almost convinced that it was our Christmas session but in fact it was a party to honour her contributions to the club over the last 30 or so years that she has been first its treasurer and then the overall organiser. A very good crowd turned out to mark the occasion. In practice Colin took over a few weeks ago but there's no problem with an excuse for a party.

With so many friends old and new appearing throughout the first half it seemed we'd never start on a second round, so rather than miss anyone out, I will try to list all of the songs sung on this occasion - though I will struggle with a couple of them.

Simon had arrived indecently early to help with the set-up, not that there was much to do, so Colin asked him to start off proceedings.