What a difference a week makes

Grand Union Canal, Park Royal (Photo: Derek Arridge)

What a difference a week makes! From a very (ahem) intimate session the previous week we had a perfectly adequate crew this week, not least thanks to three occasional visitors. John O and Chris O are not local but visit us when they are in the area with their caravan. John says this was their fourth visit, which seems about right. We were also joined by Lisa who has been before and was a very welcome sight and sound at the session.

This week's session will have an Easter theme, being on Good Friday (yes, we don't let something like that stop us), and next week will be our St George's session (26 April, just three days late).

Back to last week, with no theme and Colin back in the MC's chair, he started us off with The Jolly Machine. The song appears to originate in the factories of the Black Country but I'm afraid I've been unable to find any more information about it except that it was sung by a band called The Halliard. Apropos of nothing much here's an unrelated tune of the same name composed and played by my wife's friend from student days, Clive Williams.

Simon picked up on Geoff's singing last week of Flanders and Swann's The Gasman Cometh by first singing an updated version of it, The Smart Gasman Cometh by Nick Hunn. He tried to follow that up with The Gasman Cometh, an unrelated comedy song to the tune of Don McLean's American Pie, from The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican but he clearly had trouble remembering the tune while singing different words.

Mike was still working his way through his old song list. I think he must have been up to "T" with Tom Brown (Roud 884).

Derek said his first had to be... well he left it for us to name The Week Before Easter (Roud 154). Remember, it is indeed our Easter session this Friday (19 April).

Geoff's first song of the evening was Irish as is his custom: Muirsheen Durkin.

I will now try to name or at least mention all the songs presented to us by our visitors. John O and Chris O performed both together and separately. Together they gave us Dave Ritchie's Finest Of Them All, Cicely Fox Smith's Limehouse Reach, Bonnet and Shawl by Dave Webber, and presumably John's own parody of The Bonny Ship The Diamond (Roud 2172) about an allegedly dodgy bus company up their way "The Diamond is a bus me lads, to the Merry Hill she's bound...".

John's first solo was another self-penned song, based on To Be A Farmer's Boy (Roud 408, Laws Q30) but called To Be A Marker Buoy (for the benefit of our American readers, we pronounce "boy" and "buoy" exactly the same on this side of the pond - "boi"). He went on to sing The Village Fool (Bernie Parry), and One More Song from Jimmy and Val Montieth-Towler.

Chris gave us Estuary, which I have failed to trace [Ed: John has since told me that Estuary is a song by John Conolly and Bill Meek]. It has a refrain: "siren sound upon the river". Next from Chris was I Fear Ikea from The Lancashire Hotpots and Bring Us In Hot Tea from The Kipper Family.

Lisa's contributions were Thousands Or More (Roud 1220), Little Fishes (Roud 5477) - it's the third section of the linked recording, and Sweet Nightingale (Roud 371).

Geoff finished off the evening with Courtin' In The Kitchen (Roud 1007, Laws Q16).

It's always interesting to consider what visitors might think of our little sessions but this time it seems that John O at least enjoyed the evening since he left a recommendation on Facebook: "Very friendly and proper songs". Thanks John, I'm very pleased you enjoyed it.

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

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