Tunes help you breathe...

David Holgate's statue of Julian,
outside Norwich Cathedral,
completed in 2000
(Photo: Tony Grist)

At last week's Dragon Folk Club session it was great to be joined by first timer Nick, and a pleasant surprise to have a visitor to this predominantly singers' club who mostly played tunes. In fact Nick's weapon of choice is the mandola.

Our regular MC, Colin, started things off with Tom Lewis' Marching inland, which in a slightly obtuse way started a maritime or at least watery theme for many of the songs sung in the evening.

As usual I will mark songs new to the Dragon database (though not always new to the club) with an asterisk (*).

Next came Simon with Dougie McLean's Caledonia followed by Nick's Dragon debut with Egan's polka (*).

Paul had clearly been adding to his repertoire and sang The old miner (* roud 1136) while Denny gave us John Conolly's Fiddlers Green. And so endeth the first rotation.

As is traditional, I will mention everything Nick performed. All but the last were tunes played on the mandola. For the last one he borrowed Simon's guitar and sang; something we understand he is not accustomed to doing in public.

• Ten penny bit (*)
• Mairi's wedding
• Drowsy Maggie (*)
• John Ryan's polka (*)
• Moonstruck (* Kev Carmody)

Other songs new to the Dragon database were:

• Denny - Julian of Norwich (Sydney Carter) Julian lived in permanent seclusion as an anchoress in her cell, which was attached to St Julian's Church, Norwich. She died sometime after 1416.
• Colin - Essequibo River
• Colin - I fought the law (Sonny Curtis)

It fell to Simon to close the evening with When all men sing (Keith Scowcroft, Derek Gifford).

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

(Number of people present - 5 of whom 5 performed)

July on the Somme

Battle of the Somme 1916 - Prelude (Photo by Norman Date)

Last week's session saw novice MC, Simon attempting and not always succeeding to maintain control of the evening but we got there in the end and a total of 31 songs and tunes isn't too bad a tally. Normal service should be resumed this week.

Simon asked Derek to start which he did by saying that he has few July songs but offering Three Flowers, his version starting "As I was walking down the street one evening in July".

Another theme which emerged was the centenary of the start of the Battle of the Somme on 1 July 2016. Mike was first to contribute on this theme with Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire (Roud 9618).