It is always exciting to visit a new folk club. Orpington Folk Club was certainly a new club for us but, the club itself has a very long-established pedigree celebrating its 50th birthday this year!
Fearing the vagaries of the M25 and the Dartford Bridge, we set off early for Orpington and, with a fair wind, our sainted Sat Nav, Camilla, delivered us in Farnborough Village near Orpington just at that time in the day when cafes are shut and traditional pubs aren’t serving grub yet. So, having plenty of time and in definite need of a sarnie to stock up energy levels for the evening ahead, we retraced our steps back into Orpington and had a sandwich in The Buff - which I am pleased to report is a pub rather than a state of undress; not a naturist in sight.
Fed and watered (literally - we don’t drink before gigs), we made our way to The Change of Horses pub in Farnborough, home of the Orpington Folk Club. When we arrived, Ted Handley, our host for the evening, was already hard at work getting the room sorted out. He was soon joined by Anne Halford. By the time we’d got all the gear in from the car, the room was set for an evening’s music. Still nice and early, we had chance to chat with Ted and Anne before club regulars started to arrive. We were also treated to some great accordion music and singing by Ted, Anne and Ivan North, before the room began to fill up for the evening.
Ted, Anne and Ivan’s set effectively began the evening’s proceedings. Then, after two excellent floor spots by other club regulars, we went on for our first half. Orpington Folk Club is a very friendly club with great banter. It is also an excellent listening and singing club, and our choruses were picked up quickly. The songs and tuned seemed to go down well and there was great interaction with audience members.
The break allowed us to chat with a wider range of club regulars, and we very much appreciated the friendliness and welcome shown us.
Ted, Anne and Ivan then returned to kick off the second half with some great tunes and a rollicking Cyril Tawney song. We then took up the reins after the raffle to finish off the evening. We again mixed our own compositions with some Breton and Galician tune sets and some traditional French, Quebecois and Scots songs, ending the night with Navajos & Pirates. It was very pleasing and we were honoured to be asked to perform an encore to finish off the night.
The energy had been high throughout the evening in what is a very pleasant space to perform and listen to music, and it stayed high as we had further chance to talk with club organisers and regulars before packing up for home.
As we travel around the UK motorway system, we seem to be developing some truths from which proverbs might be fashioned. One that seems to have great potential is ‘when the Spaniard drives, the way is blocked’. It certainly seems the case that when poor old Rob is behind the wheel, like water lilies in the evening, motorway lanes begin to fold and close before our eyes – and, so it was, on this (my birthday) evening. The run-up to the Dartford Tunnel was closed off resulting in a seemingly endless line of bemused drivers being forced to do a motorised hokey cokey through the byways of nether Dartford before being allowed to cross the river.
Anyway, we made it home for 1.00am and spent some of the remaining time in the car listening to some recordings of new na-mara material – listen out for some new songs coming through.
Many thanks to Ted, Anne and Ivan for looking after us so well on the night! Thanks also to fellow club organiser, Steve Jennings, who booked us for the gig but wasn’t able to be there on the evening. We very much hope that we can return to Orpington Folk Club in the not too distant future and get to meet Steve in person and catch up on all the club’s news again then.