More campfires than Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes Night 1776 at Windsor Castle

Last week's session was our Guy Fawkes Night bash with songs and stories encouraged on any subject related to the man, to fire or things you might do round the campfire. This week's (Friday, 10 November) will be the Remembrance session, so any form of performance war-related, anti-war or for remembrance would be excellent. If you can't manage the theme, then anything goes as long as it's acoustic, and if you don't want to perform then you are most welcome to come along for the fun and make us an audience.

Back to last week, Colin was MC and he started off proceedings with Richard Digance's Boy Scout Song.

Mike referred directly to the date with Spencer The Rover (Roud 1115): "'Twas the fifth day of November, I've reason to remember...".

Jane is our occasional visiting storyteller and it was great to see her for some tales around our imaginary campfire. She thought she was cheating by following campfire tradition with a story which she started off and passed to everyone around the room. Even if it was cheating it was also good fun. We wove a yarn of a group of children lost after missing their bus home, following their adventures until Steve C had them come upon of all things a carp fishing competition! We left it there.

Steve thought a campfire might be a place for protest songs, and gave us Where Have All The Flowers Gone (Pete Seeger, Joe Hickerson). Derek sang his one Guy Fawkes song of the evening, Bonfire Night, before continuing to hark back to Halloween, since he missed the previous week's session on that theme.

Simon's first song mentioned a bonfire in the first line, being Brian Bedford's This Is The Way The World Ends. Geoff took us back to campfires, or at least camping with Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (words Allan Sherman, music Amilcare Ponchielli).

Colin stuck with the theme of campfire songs to give us Tom The Toad and Mike followed with the less innocent, but equally amusing Five Constipated Men.

Jane departed from her storytelling to read to us Robert Browning's How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix.

Simon departed slightly from the theme to sing Jambalaya (Hank Williams), in memory of Fats Domino, who died in October, though with all that party food in the lyric, it must have involved some sort of outdoor fire.

In the first half we had been seven and we were down to six when Mike left around the interval but not for long as Henry arrived to take his place. Henry sang from his own songwriting, the first being inspired by a guest at the Bath Folk Festival, of which he is an organiser: Kitty MacFarlane (You Can Find Me In Facebook). He continued with Love Caused The Trouble about overstaying his welcome at a folk festival in the company of a female security guard and The Siege Of Leningrad about his Russian aunt who lived through it and because of that still commands the respect of the youths in her neighbourhood.

I'm not quite sure of the campfire link in Colin's singing of Running Bear (Jiles Perry Richardson "The Big Bopper") but I like it and fondly remembered the last time he sang it. Maybe I should add the backing next time he brings it out? Yes, I used to be quite into music of the 50s and 60s though I'm too young to have anything but vague memories of the very late 60s - yes, I know if you remember the sixties... Geoff, who sang Winkle Picker Shoes Blues (Myles Rudge, Ted Dicks) said some words had come to him recently and he couldn't remember what they were from. After some Googling, it turned out to be Once Upon A Time (Jeff Barry, Ben Raleigh), recorded by Ricky Valance in 1960, which was the B-side of Tell Laura I Love Her (Jeff Barry, Ben Raleigh).

Colin finished off the evening with the calypso Sly Mongoose.

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

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