No discernible thread

Martin Niemöller (Photo: J.D. Noske / Anefo)

It was a pleasant surprise last week to see two people who hadn't joined us for quite a while. Paul was a regular Dragon attendee before he moved some distance away. Robin was also once a regular but hasn't been since 2014, at least partly due to his extreme folk festival attending ways - then I saw him twice in as many days, but that's another story.

Colin was MC and started off the session with Crazy Man Michael (Richard Thompson, Dave Swarbrick) and Geoff followed him singing Dandy Vernon (Michael Snow).

Paul, as is his usual way gave us a collection of self-penned songs. The first of these was Moondance Again, inspired jointly by Van Morrison's famous hit and a beach holiday Paul once had with his wife. For his second song Paul had planned to sing part of his song Then 'Til Now, a nine-verse epic inspired initially by the death of an American blues-man he admired. Each verse details an atrocity experienced by black people in the USA in a different decade of the blues-man's life, starting in the 1920s. Colin suggested he sing all nine verses, and after some discussion Paul decided the sing it in two sections, which he did over his next two turns. His last song of the evening before taking the long and winding road back home was That's All I Know.

Mining more songs

Wardley Colliery (Photo: Lee St)

We were joined for the first time in a couple of years or more by Robin in a break from his regular folk festival attendance. There was no official theme but Derek picked up on his own theme from last night, being mining songs mainly from the North East of England.

Colin was MC and started off the evening with The Old Turf Fire (Roud 8215).

Derek was immediately into his mining theme with Sooth Medomsley Strike (Tommy Armstrong, Roud V40590). He followed up with Little Chance (Roud 3385), The Coal Owner And The Pitman's Wife (William Hornsby), In The Bar-room (Roud 3486), Number Two Top Seam (Roger Watson), Rap Her To Bank (Roud 1786) and Jowl Jowl And Listen (Roud 3191).

Mainly mining

Durham Miners' Gala (Photo: Darrell J Rohl)

Last week's session looked like being similar to the previous one with four people present at the start but over the course of the first few songs our numbers were swelled to a respectable eight. There was no official theme and Colin, in his role as MC, started us off with John of Dreams (Bill Caddick, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky). Colin noted that this was a song often sung by our friend Terry C at our sessions.

Two further songs from Terry C's repertoire were sung, mike, pointing out that he had been singing it longer than Terry, gave us Eric Bogle's No Use For Him and Simon sang Hughie Jones' The Ellan Vannin Tragedy.

Garummph garummph

Coulter's Candy (Photo: alistair fitchett)

In spite of Colin’s suggestion that this week’s title be Scottish Filth, I have chosen the above, to represent the sounds emitted by your Substitute Scribe, who as a result of over-practising for a school musical event (subsequently cancelled) was left with virtually no voice at all.

We welcomed back Tom who at least raised the number of attendees enough for us to be able to make a choice whether to hold a sing-around or a few hands of bridge. Having decided on the former, Colin began with Ian McCalman’s Let’s Recycle, based on events in Midlothian, and hence inadvertently introducing the first Scottish element to the evening.

Tom mercifully continued with Allan Taylor’s Roll on the Day, probably the only song in the canon pitched low enough to allow the suffering SubScribe to join in