Remembrance 2018

Photo: Simon Meeds

Last week's session was our Remembrance special. It was good for the regular crew to be joined by Steve C. Having been absent at our last session, Derek hadn't prepared songs to the theme but as usual he provided plenty of topical material.

This week's session will have no theme but be prepared for the following one on 30 November, which will have a St Andrew's Day theme. As well as being patron Saint of Scotland, which is of course the main target of the evening, it may be useful to know that he is patron of: Barbados, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Sicily, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Patras, Burgundy, San Andrés (Tenerife), Diocese of Parañaque, Telhado (Portugal), Amalfi, Luqa (Malta) and Prussia; Diocese of Victoria; fishermen, fishmongers and rope-makers, textile workers, singers, miners, pregnant women, butchers, farm workers, protection against sore throats, protection against convulsions, protection against fever, and protection against whooping cough. You should find something there to sing about.

And so, back to last week, Colin was MC and started off the theme with a good WWI sing-along to Bless 'Em All (Fred Godfrey, Robert Kewley - Roud 8402).

Steve C took us back to the Spanish-American War of 1898 with Goodbye Dolly Gray (Will D Cobb, Paul Barnes - Roud 18956), which became more popular during the Second Boer War of 1899-1902.

Ploughing his own furrow, Derek wanted to mark the recent death of Max Levitas at 103, probably the last surviving member of the communist contingent of the anti-fascist side at the Battle of Cable Street. Derek said that while he didn't know Max, he knew his brother Maurice. (I think I caught Derek's gist there). Derek wasn't aware of any songs about Max Levitas, so he sang The Ballad Of Harry Pollitt.

Chess player Geoff using the "battle" connection justify singing a song he had been considering for a long time, singing One Night In Bankok (Tim Rice, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus) from the musical Chess.

Simon gave us two songs from the pen of Mike Harding: Jimmy Spoons about a an old WWI soldier, down on his luck, and Bomber's Moon, a semi-biographical tale about his father, Louis Arthur "Curly" Harding, a Lancaster navigator, killed weeks before Mike was born in 1944.

Mike's first song of the evening was Homeward, a poem written, or maybe collected by Cicely Fox Smith and set to music by Sarah Morgan.

As the evening progressed, we had two songs written by Dave Webber: Watch and Chain from Mike and The Old Man's Song from Steve C, a song which tells the whole story of a man's life in terms of the wars he has lived through and how they affected him and his family.

Simon gave us our first Christmas song of the year - "Bah Humbug!" I hear you cry, in Stop The Cavalry, written by Jona Lewie.

Colin did a good job of plundering songs from War Horse, the play from Michael Morpurgo's children's novel of the same name. He sang one of John Tams', The Devonshire Carol and another much older, Only Remembered (Horatius Bonar, Ira D Sankey).

Mike's final song before taking canine companion home to his bed was a request from Derek, made a few weeks before but delayed until Remembrance, Normandy Orchards, written by Keith Marsden.

We continued steadfastly, Derek remembering the 22nd November anniversary of The High Blantyre Explosion (Roud 1014) and The Oakey Strike Evictions (Tommy Armstrong) which took place in November during the 1885 stoppage in the North West Durham coalfield when striking miners could be evicted from their mine-owned houses.

The evening was brought to a close by Simon singing Elizabeth Padgett's Plover Catcher about South Lincolnshire men hunting with punt guns to send game birds to London during WWII.

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

(Number of people present - 6, of whom 6 performed)