Surprise, Surprise!

In the knowledge that the Regular Scribe would be absent on a mission of mercy, your Substitute Scribe came to the club door, depressed by the idea that the death that day of Derek Fowlds signified bad news for all Dereks, and anticipating a thin attendance. Instead he was met by three of our favourite Irregulars.

One person who did not attend was the one who the day before had stumped up a million pounds for a gold sovereign. He might well have been worried by Gary's first, self-penned, song King David Hartley which recounts the activities of the eponymous Hartley and his gang of counterfeiters and coin clippers in the area around Heptonstall in the 1760s.

Other songs from Gary included Old Sea Dog (Burt Franklin Jenness), Rough Justice (Dave Boulton/Jeff Parton, better known as His Worship and the Pig) and Put Your Fingers in Your Trousers (Hugh Rowland).  This last is a timely but humorous warning to men to take testicular cancer seriously, reminiscent of JBS Haldane's Cancer's a Funny Thing:

I wish I had the voice of Homer to sing of rectal carcinoma,
Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact, than got bumped off when Troy was sacked.

Terry [H] began with Tennessee Waltz (Redd Stewart/Pee Wee King) and expressed a desire for more than the two basic verses. If he listens to the Emmylou Harris version there are a few more there including:

She goes dancing with the darkness to the Tennessee Waltz, and I feel like I'm falling apart.
It's stronger than drink and it's deeper than sorrow - this darkness she left in my heart.

Other songs from Terry included Shenandoah (Roud 324), White Cockade (or pick your own colour – it's still Roud 191), his own We All Turn Away (inspired by an image of poverty at Christmas) and an English translation of Éamonn a' Chnuíc (Ned of the Hill) of which there are several settings, Terry using the one made most popular by Irish fiddler and occasional piper Sean Maguire.

Tom also featured a translation, of Gilbert Becaud's  Je t'appartiens – rendered by Manny Curtis as Let It Be Me. Other songs by Tom were Jake Thackray's Jolly Captain (the story of a man burying his wife facing downwards so she cannot come back to haunt him), his own Memory Store and Goodbye Liza Jane which is popular in the USA but also found enough in Britain to qualify as Roud 825, sometimes under the title Scarlet Town.

Tom's other contribution to the evening was his participation on the evening's hot topic of conversation – What is the College of Preceptors? Well, for those still worrying, they are an organization of teachers founded to create and maintain professional standards in a profession which had at the time [the 1840s] a poor reputation. Schoolmasters at that time, and especially masters of private schools, were not very highly esteemed, and the more worthy were prejudiced by the evil repute of quacks and charlatans, who looked upon school-keeping as nothing else than a mode of obtaining money by false pretences.

Another unlikely topic of conversation was: why do women watching horse racing wear such ridiculously high heels? When an appeal arose for songs with high heels, Derek sang Sam Larner's version of Dogger Bank, although the mention of high heels there has almost certainly drifted over from Tailoress By Trade.

Other  songs included Rosabella (Roud 13252), John Kanaka (Roud 8238) - both Mike- King of Rome (Dave Sudbury), Brighouse On A Saturday Night (Roger Davies), Messing About on the River (Tony Hatch/Les Reed) – all Colin- and You Rambling Boys of Pleasure (Roud 386) - Derek

The job of finishing the evening fell to Gary who performed his own song Elsie concerning the final rites at Salford's old rugby league stadium – appropriate for a closing song, but not too appropriate since next week we will still be at our usual Old Stadium. Hope to see even more of you here.

Now listen to a selection of songs sung during this session.

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