Important information

The City Folk Club will NOT be meeting on Friday 9th September because the Guide Hall will be otherwise occupied.

Otherwise, it will be business as usual for all other Fridays in September, and throughout October.

Being The 26th of August, 2011 ...

Berry appeared thus:

As host for the evening, he welcomed twenty participants and made a prompt and enthusiastic start at 20.22 hours precisely.

Here's what we heard:

Walk Right Back: Berry & Ken
Clare Morris: Howard
Take me back one more time: Marion & Mick
Lavender's Blue: Yvonne
The Harvester: Mike
John Barleycorn: Roland
Will the Circle be Unbroken: Angela
Unchained Melody: Tony
The Bergen, v.1/The Road will be calling us on: Eddie
Rolling with the Flow: Les
When this bloody war is over: Nigel
12-string shuffle: Mick
She's like the Swallow: Lynda
Rout of the Blues: Colin
Burglin' on the side: Ken
Forty Shades of Green: Howard & Berry
Carolina Pines: Marion & Mick
Everybody's Talking: Marion & Mick
Mortningtown Ride: Yvonne
Fotheringay: Mike
Butter and Cheese and All: Roland
West Virginia Miner: Angela
Home Lads Home: Eddie
You can't Read my Mind: Les
Maggie: Howard
Dark-Eyed Molly: Nigel
O'Carolan's Draft: Mick
Molly Bawn: Lynda
John Ball: Colin
Lara's Theme: Berry
A Layabout's Lament: Ken
Scarlet Town is Burning down: Marion & Mick
Halcyon Days: Mike & Yvonne
Miss me when I'm Gone: Angela
Thousands or More: Eddie
Jambalaya: Berry, Ken and full cast

Wow!!!
Thirty-six items of music, a preview of Tony's bathroom suite, engaging banter, a creole menu: what more could you desire on a Friday evening?
No tears were shed and there was no poetry ...
... and it cost you nothing!

Be warned: next week it will cost you £2.00.

Being The 19th August, 2011 ...

Dogsbody has been away for a few weeks.
Last week he was here:

Nevertheless, on his return from remote regions, he was grateful to receive reports of the club's activities.
He is delighted and encouraged that his absence passed unnoticed.

Lynda diligently chronicled the song list.
Here it is:

Steal Away: Paul
College Boy: Lynda
Lazy Bones: Allis & John Gradwell
When somebody thinks you're wonderful: John G. & Allis.
Bouffard's Waltz, Hebridean Waters, South Wind & The Red Lark: Lorna
A Merry Little Minuet: Roger
Seashore: Mick
A Sound Proposition: Tony
Ballad of Accounting: Ken
Bright Fine Gold: Mave
Crantock Games: Nigel
It's a Wonderful Life: Paul
Andrew Lammie: Lynda
Ain't Misbehavin': Allis & John
Up the Lazy River: John
Blaze Away: Lorna
Roll on John: Roger
Ride a Mile (slip jig): Mick
Bidin' my Time: Ken
I live in Trafalgar Square: Mave
You were always on my mind: Nigel
Girl from the North Country: Paul
Most of us are Sad: Lynda
Momma's little baby loves shortnin' bread: Brenda
My Heart belongs to Daddy: Allis & John (plus Paul)
Who's sorry now?: John
Nelly Bligh: Lorna
Waltzing's for Dreamers: Roger
Blues in E: Mick
The Mary-Ellen Carter: Ken & Mave
Thousands or More: Nigel

No mortal injuries seem to have been inflicted, no complaints have been received
... and no money changed hands, did it?

Early one morning between Snaresbrook and South Woodford …

I started the best gainful employment I ever had at the age of thirteen.

My day began at 6.00am, and the morning paper-round occupied an hour or so that most people wouldn’t normally use. Mr. Unwin, the newsagent on Hermon Hill, was a very kind employer who paid me 7 shillings and 6 pence a week.

About the same time I learned to whistle, and I would gaily walk the streets whistling my favourite melodies in the cool hush of each morning as I pushed ever-increasing thicknesses of newsprint through inadequate letter-boxes.

Dvorak was my favourite: I could handle all four movements of his 9^th Symphony, and my rendition of the adagio was the forerunner of a well-known advertisement for bread.

At the end of Falcon Way, (part of my round,) there was a footbridge traversing the overground section of LT’s Central Line.

One day I stopped whistling to quietly observe an early commuter making his way to the tube station at Snaresbrook.

He wore a pin-striped-suit, a bowler-hat, and bore an immaculately rolled umbrella. With great agility he ascended the steps at the top of which he launched forth with a clarity and purity of voice that was astounding:

“Early one morning …,” he sang … and the Sun rose!

“Wow!” I thought.
A young soul was captivated.

Thereafter my whistling graduated to Rach 2 and those Paganini variations. I even attempted Beethoven’s glorious 5^th piano concerto. I was rather good at Sibelius’ Karelia Suite, and for moments of adolescent gloom I took on RVW’s Tallis variations. Schoenberg, of course, was beyond me.

But … every weekday morning I would cease my cacophony at 3 Falcon Way.

If I was early, I would wait.
If it rained, I sheltered under a nearby laburnum tree.

Regularly this man appeared and, to my delight, he would repeat the same ritual.

I wondered about him ...

What was his day-job?

Whence cometh his confidence to greet and celebrate the day in such a public fashion?

I wanted to say, “Hello,” but I was very shy in those days.

Thus was born an interest in folk song.
That city-based financier, or whatever, will never know the gift he gave me, but I thank him.

Here are some lyrics:

Early one morning, just as the sun was rising,
I heard a maid sing in the valley below:
"Oh, don't deceive me, oh, never leave me!
How could you use a poor maiden so?"

"Oh gay is the garland, fresh are the roses,
I've culled from the garden to bind on thy brow.
Oh, don't deceive me, Oh, never leave me!
How could you use a poor maiden so?"

"Remember the vows that you made to your Mary,
Remember the bower where you vowed to be true.
Oh, don't deceive me, oh, never leave me.
How could you use a poor maiden so?"

Thus sung the poor maiden, her sorrow bewailing,
Thus sung the poor maid in the valley below:
"Oh don't deceive me! Oh, never leave me!
How could you use a poor maiden so?

Of course, people my age will remember this from schooldays, and realise that its inclusion in music lessons totally missed the point.

Watch out for the second chapter in this serialised autobiography in due course.