It was a very hot summer night when we travelled the short distance from home to perform for the Hertfordshire Spanish Circle. Some members of the Circle had seen us perform at a fund raiser earlier in the year to raise money for a statue to International Brigader, Tom Watters and had then encouraged the organisers of the Circle to invite us to play at one of their regular educational evenings; something we were more than happy to do.
Along the lines of some performances we gave around the anniversary of the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the evening was a mixture of music and historical presentation with a first half devoted to talking at high level about the background and progress of the war and the role played in it by the British contingent of the International Brigade. The second half concentrated on the war in the Basque region and the evacuation of the Basque children to Britain in May 1937. Both halves were punctuated with relevant songs and music taken from our current and historic repertoire.
The venue was a large room in a public house, and the event attracted around 50 people. Most of those attending were longstanding members the Circle. However, it was nice to see a sprinkling of friends and family dotted around the room. Most notably there was a woman who had seen us play at Bishop’s Stortford a few weeks earlier and had travelled across the county by bus to be with us – something we appreciated enormously.
Given the Circle’s interest in all things Spanish, there were some in the room who were very knowledgeable about the Civil War. However, for others it was all new knowledge. As we find wherever we go, very few people were aware of the history of the Basque children - something that the personal connection Rob has to that story vividly brings alive.
Naturally, we had some very interesting conversations with Circle members throughout the evening. The feedback we got form them was excellent and we made a lot of new friends.
At the beginning of the performance we explained that, although the evening was exclusively about aspects of the Spanish Civil War, our music was not defined by it. As such, for an encore, we showcased a range of our other material including, Navajos and Pirates and The Garden of England, which both went down very well and individually attracted interest from specific members of the audience.
Many thanks to the Rosamond Bertauche and the Hertfordshire Spanish Circle in general for the invitation to perform and we are very glad to know that the evening was a success.