Sadly, the fund-raising event at the Watford Folk Club had to be postponed last Friday as the Beast from the East wrestled with Storm Emma and dumped snow and ice all over this part of Hertfordshire. We will tell everyone once we know the re-arranged date for the fund raiser and hope that you can get along and support a wonderful folk club providing a great service to music in the Watford area.

On a happier note, Rob and I were able to make it to the Banjo Mandolin Guitar Federation’s Festival in Worthing on Saturday and Sunday where we provided a workshop (expertly led by Rob), performed a concert and became involved as adjudicators in some of the many competitions being held at the Festival. 

We met up with some really talented and friendly people at the Festival and heard some great music at what was a wonderfully inclusive event. There was classical, jazz, folk from a variety of traditions, bluegrass and many other forms of music on show, all being played to a very high standard, plus a significant number of interesting workshops going on. Those attending were catching up with old friends, making new ones and generally having a wonderful time. 

Many thanks to Nicki, Sandra, Barbara and all the BMG Committee more generally for the invitation to participate in the Festival and we look forward to working with the BMG again at some future date. Thanks also to Rose who very kindly put us up in her lovely town house in Brighton. Much appreciated!

Rob and I both love Scotland.  As such, when the chance arose for us to play a series of gigs north of the border, we were absolutely delighted to accept. That the tour would also entail two gigs with our great friends in Scottish-Spanish folk collective Gallo Rojo made the prospect doubly delicious.

So, on a sunny Thursday lunchtime (5^th October 2017) we set off.  To break the drive north, we arranged with club organiser Rahel Guzelian at the Topic Folk Club in Bradford, to join club members in one of the club’s occasional singaround sessions.  This also meant we could stay overnight with family and renew our links with the Topic Folk Club where we had performed twelve months earlier and, excitingly, we will be headlining in September 2018.

The singaround at the Topic was great fun.  As one might expect of an historic club like the Topic, there is a lot of talent across a wide range of folk music and it was a personal joy for me that my brother also came along and performed a couple of songs.

After a hearty breakfast the next day, we set off for Scotland.  The weather was gorgeous and the journey through the Borders stunning.  We enjoyed two brief walks around Jedburgh and then Melrose.  With such jewels to hand, it would have been a sin not to enjoy them.

We then drove the last fifty or so miles to Portobello on the eastern edge of Edinburgh where we were to play that night.  We headed initially for Euan Johnston of Gallo Rojo's house where he had very kindly laid some food on for us, before we headed over to the gig venue at The Jaffle Joint on Portobello High Street. This was to be the first of two gigs on consecutive days remembering the fight against fascism in the Spanish Civil War and the story of the 4,000 young children evacuated from the Basque country to Britain in May 1937.

(It is worth mentioning at this point that the MSP for Edinburgh Eastern, Ash Denham, had lodged a motion in the Scottish Parliament on 12th September 2017 (S5M-07642) applauding the efforts of Gallo Rojo, ourselves and the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival (ESFF – see next blogpost) in remembering the Basque children of 1937 on the 80th anniversary of their arrival in Britain and wishing us well for this concert in Portobello.  How cool is that!)

The Jaffle Joint was a lively venue that very much came alive through the evening.  Friends and followers of ours and Gallo Rojo, along with members of the Basque Children of '37 Association filled the space in the bistro to bursting point and, from a tightly packed stage, we kicked the evening off with a punchy set that covered much of our Spanish Civil War repertoire.  

The endlessly exuberant Gallo Rojo then drove the crowd to a frenzy with their powerful songs and great harmonies.  

We then finished the evening off together with both bands combining to sing the famous Spanish Civil War song, The Valley of Jarama.  

Many thanks to our great friend Dave Orem for capturing the evening for us all in pictures and film and thanks to the staff at The Jaffle Joint for their accommodation of all of our requirements through the evening.

After the gig, Rob and I left for Dave's apartment in central Edinburgh where we were kindly being put up for our time in Scotland. After the long drive and an energetic concert plus the prospect of an early start and another long drive the next day, we didn't stay up much beyond a cup of tea and a glass of whisky.

As many followers of Na-Mara may know, not long after the Basque Children arrived in Britain, they were sent onwards to a geographically dispersed set of hostels or 'colonias'.  The only colonia in Scotland was in the small east coast town of Montrose, between Dundee and Aberdeen and it was to there we headed on Saturday morning.

This was to be an important day for Rob in that his father had been one of the 24 child refugees accommodated in Mall House in Montrose exactly eighty years before.  This was his first visit to the town.

The local press had taken quite an interest in the story and Rob met with a journalist from the Dundee Courier at the house where the children were accommodated, which is still.  However, prior to that happening, following a quick phone call to a good pal of Dave’s, we were invited to an impromptu lunch of soup and bridies at Rod and Verity's house where we given the warmest of welcomes (and the best of food).  

After lunch, Rod kindly walked us all round to the house - an imposing structure of red sandstone now converted to flats, where Rob met with the reporter covering the story.  After Rob had spoken with the reporter and photos were taken, it was time for us to go on to the venue for our Montrose gig which, this time,  was to be an afternoon event.

The Neptune Bar (or ' Neppie') is a lively local music venue in the attractive town of Montrose.  Througha mix of local publicity and mentions in the International Brigade Memorial Trust and Basque Children’s Association of ’37 Newsletters, a decent number of interested listeners assembled, alongside pub regulars, to see us and Gallo Rojo perform.

Both bands pretty much ran through the same repertoire as the night before and were both pretty well received.  Being an afternoon gig meant the atmosphere in the Neppie was generally a tad quieter than in the Jaffle Joint the night before.  The upside to this was that some of the quieter songs fared a little better than the night before and, this said, we still managed to have a little impromptu dancing break out at one point and there was some excellent interaction with those who’d come along to see us.

Following the gig, the focus was on packing up and heading back to Auld Reekie for some beers and a curry – and very good they were too.

I will talk about our involvement in the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival in my next blogpost. However, let me take this opportunity here to thank Euan Johnston for all his hard work in fixing these two gigs up for us and to the wonderful Gallo Rojo for their friendship and their outstanding performances at The Jaffle Joint in Portobello and The Neptune Bar in Montrose.  Thanks also to the staff of both those bars for being so accommodating to our needs when setting up the stages and rooms for the performances.  Thanks to Charlie Williamson for his introduction to our performance in the Neppie.

Similarly thanks go to Simon Martinez and Barbara of the Basque Children’s Association of ’37 for their sterling efforts in preparing the venues appropriately for the gigs and to Mike Arnott of the IBMT in Scotland for promoting the gigs and coming along.  All very much appreciated.

Finally, thanks go to all those - whether family, friends or just interested parties - who came along to see the two performances. 

October 8^th- 9^th 2017

After the exertions of Thursday to Saturday, it was time to ease back a little on Sunday.  We had no formal playing commitments that day so we took the opportunity to go for a walk with friends alongside The Water of Leith, down to the bustling area of Stockbridge in Edinburgh, where we had lunch. Then, in the afternoon, Dave and another friend, Ross, were on hand to help us with a little photo and video shoot during an impromptu house concert.  Watch this space in the coming weeks for evidence of their hard work over the course of that afternoon.

In the evening, we took in a film at the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival and I will draw a veil over the beers and the junk food I consumed thereafter – it was definitely not on the good food diet.

On Monday, Rob had various people to meet and, so, I took up Dave’s invitation to go and visit the school where he works and meet some of his colleagues and staff. 

However, we had our own role to play in the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival (ESFF) that evening and, mid-afternoon, I met up with Rob on the South Bridge and we made our way over to George Square, the city heart of the University of Edinburgh.

That evening the ESFF were showing Steve Bowles’ award winning documentary film, The Guernica Children, that tells the story of the Basque child refugees from Bilbao in May 1937, narrated by Siân Phillips .  Very kindly, we had been invited by the festival organiser, to perform our two songs about the Basque child refugees at the showing of the film. We were to play Only For Three Months before the film was shown and The Silver Duro immediately afterwards.  Rob was then to join a panel with three other children of the Basque children to discuss their parents’ recollections of the evacuation and the resonances of their experience for current times. 

The film was being shown in the early evening in a lecture theatre at the University of Edinburgh’s Department of European Languages and Cultures and, by the time Rob and I arrived, Simon and Barbara of the Basque Childrens’ Association of ’37 (BCA37) and others were hard at work putting up the travelling exhibition to inform attendees of the story of the child refugees from Bilbao. 

We arrived in good time to get tuned up before the lecture theatre filled to capacity (around 90-100 people). 

The Guernica Children is a powerful and moving testimony to the Basque child refugees, highlighting the atrocities in Guernica which accelerated the tide of refugees into the city of Bilbao and eventually led to the evacuation of the children on the SS Havana to Southampton and onwards.  The dockside scenes of parting at Santurce are particularly highly charged emotionally and I would urge anyone to see the film if the opportunity arises. 

We were content to play our small role in supporting the ESFF and the BCA37 in bringing the story of the Basque children to a wider audience and the subsequent panel session involving Rob, Simon and others was both informative and thought-provoking. Thanks go to  ESFF organiser, Marian Aldaz Aréchaga for her kind invitation to participate in this element of the film festival and to thank her and her colleagues for making the evening run so smoothly.

Being an early evening showing, there was time afterwards for us to say goodbye to our friends and colleagues in Edinburgh.  I took the opportunity to meet up with some old university buddies of mine and, yes, more beers were consumed.

Rob was staying up in Scotland on the Tuesday but I was returning to St. Albans and, by 9.00am on Tuesday morning, I had said my goodbyes to friends.  An hour later I was at Waverley Station to catch the train home to St. Albans and was home in time for a cuppa, mid-afternoon.

The previous days had produced a truly memorable trip to Scotland where we met up with longstanding friends, made some new friends, played some highly enjoyable concerts with Gallo Rojo, performed at the ESFF and experienced both lovely countryside and the invigorating and beautiful city that is Edinburgh. We have so many people to thank but keeping things short especial thanks go to Dave and Chris and Gaynor for accommodating us so wonderfully on our travels and to Rahel, Euan, Charlie and Marian for facilitating our performances over four unforgettable evenings in West Yorkshire and Scotland.

We will now be turning our attention to recording duties.  Please watch this space for occasional updates as we start putting the new album together.

It is always a thrill to visit a new folk venue and we were delighted to have been invited by club organiser, Mark Pidgeon, to perform at the Wychwood Folk Club in west Oxfordshire last weekend.

The club is fortunate to operate out of two attractive venues, Tiddy Hall and The Swan Inn, in the lovely village of Ascott-under-Wychwood and we had the honour of being the first guests to perform at the recently refurbished club room at The Swan Inn - and very pleasant and comfortable it proved to be.

We set off late afternoon to travel to Ascott and, because of various shenanigans on the M25, travelled by the country route through Aylesbury and Bicester.  Arriving about 6.00pm, we could hear music coming from an annexe to the pub and we entered to find club organiser Mark Pidgeon hard at work getting the room set up for the evening show.

The annexe at The Swan is a pleasantly refurbished room and by the time we arrived Mark and fellow club organiser, Elaine, had already laid out ten or so rows of chairs.  The room is longer than it is wide and, to ensure the sound is as good at the back as the front of the room, Mark uses a P.A. to just lift the sound of the performers a little.  So, as soon as Mark was ready, we quickly ran through a sound check with Mark who successfully captured an appropriately acoustic feel for our final sound.

As we finished the sound check, our fellow performer for the evening, singer-songwriter Edward Naysmith, arrived and went through his sound check with Mark.

The doors opened at 7.00pm and, as the audience for the evening began to assemble, it was very nice to chat quietly with Edward and hear what he had been up to and in what had obviously been a busy schedule, who he had been performing with. 

At 7.30pm, the evening kicked off with Edward performing a number of his own compositions.  A very talented guitarist with a distinct vocal delivery, Edward showed great presence when performing and was warmly received by the audience.  I have no doubt we will all hear a great deal more of Edward Naysmith in the years ahead and sincerely hope that this proves to be the case.  It was a pleasure to meet him and to hear him perform.

We then took to the stage for our first set.  The Wychwood Folk Club audience proved to be our ideal kind of audience; it likes to listen but is also very content to join in on choruses.  Audience members quickly seemed to engage with our music, and it was nice to chat with various club members at half time.  This included someone who had seen a Facebook post of mine where I was messing around with my new toy, a Paul Hathway tenor guitar.  He was looking at investing in a(nother) tenor guitar and wanted to hear my views about mine – which I am pleased to say remain very favourable. 

Then, after the raffle and parish notices, Rob and I returned to finish off the evening and were ultimately delighted to be invited to return for an encore.  We received some wonderful feedback from audience members at the end of the evening, and sales of our CDs were as good as I can remember them being at any of our folk club evenings. 

Eventually, as with all such evenings, after a number of further conversations with audience members and with Mark and Elaine, it was time to pack the gear up again, stick it in the back of the car and say our goodbyes. 

Our SatNav plotted us the quickest route home but showed an uncharacteristic sense of humour in taking us there through some of the narrowest lanes in Oxfordshire in the growing mist to get to the A40. Anyway, all was well, we didn’t meet any oncoming cars, and we managed to get home in time for me to treat myself to a (birthday) drink in the early hours.

Very many thanks to Mark Pidgeon for the invitation to perform and for the warmest of welcomes at the lovely Wychwood Folk Club.  We would love to return to the club again at some time in the future and say hello to everyone again. We wish the club well for its autumn season.

Rob and I have had the pleasure of playing for the Friends Music Society in Welwyn Garden City a number of times before, most recently in April 2010 and again in October 2014. So, it was a real pleasure and honour to be invited back to perform for the Society once again. 

Following its refurbishment in 2014, Friends Music has now returned to its historic home which is at the Quaker Meeting House in Welwyn Garden City.  The setting for the current concerts is nicely intimate allowing audience members to sit around three sides of the performers which facilitates dynamic interaction between both.

So, not only were we meeting at the Friends Meeting House, but we were also meeting our friends from Friends Music again and, additionally, a lot of our personal friends had kindly taken time out of their Sunday evening to come across from St Albans and elsewhere to see us perform.  So, we had friends present in multiple definitions on the evening and that greatly helped in setting the scene for a truly lovely evening.

Friends Music runs a series of Sunday evening concerts with all types of music included classical of many varieties, jazz and male voice choirs are all represented on their autumn programme.  It was, therefore, our great pleasure to add folk music to the programme.

As the 6:00pm time for starting the concert approached, the concert room filled pretty much to capacity. Albeit not a folk audience, I’m pleased to report that those present were easily persuaded into getting involved in choruses and, together, we all made an excellent sound.  The audience were also good listeners and proved intensely interested in the stories we were telling through our songs and music.

We played two sets of around 40 minutes, with a short break between. 

Admission to Friends Music evenings is free and there is almost always a charity nominated by the evening’s performers to which attendees can contribute.  Because it has being stalking a number of our personal friends in recent times, we nominated Prostate Cancer UK as our charity for the evening and were very pleased to have our good friend Phil Coates with us to start off the second half of the concert with a brief presentation on the disturbing statistics surrounding this terrible disease and to provide details about the important and excellent work done by Prostate Cancer UK.

In terms of the music, Rob and I had a lot of very positive feedback at both half time and at the end of the performance and I am delighted to further report that audience members proved very generous indeed in their donations to Prostate Cancer UK at the end of the evening – for which many many thanks.

We very much enjoyed ourselves throughout the evening and sincerely hope to return once more to the Friends Music series in the coming years. Thanks to organisers George, David, Helen, Mary and Vicky for the invitation to perform once more at the Friends Music concert series and for looking after us so well whilst we were with them. Thanks also to Phil Coates for coming along to speak on behalf of Prostate Cancer UK and, indeed, for all his Herculean efforts on behalf of this important charity. 

Rehearsals were over, the packing was done and it was time to set off for our first experience of the wonderful Shrewsbury Folk Festival.  The weather was fine, the roads were kind and we made it easily to a service station near Telford for lunch.

Suitably refreshed, after lunch we drove the last few miles to the festival site which was already busy by the time we arrived.

Despite the tragic loss of one of its main architects and organisers, Alan Surtees, earlier in the summer, the professionalism and organisation behind the Shrewsbury Folk Festival was manifest immediately we arrived and superbly maintained throughout our time there.  Communication with artists ahead of the festival, the sorting out of accommodation for artists and the processing of artists arriving on site were all carried out efficiently and effectively. 

In our case, we parked up quickly near Artists’ Reception, got our festival wristbands sorted out and then went to have a look around the festival site and, in particular, the two stages we were due to play later in the day. 

Almost seconds after we had cast our eyes over the lovely Purity Village Stage - where we would later be honoured with striking the very first notes and chords of the entire festival – we bumped into two of our closest friends.  Karen and Phil had travelled up to Shrewsbury from just north of Wolverhampton to come and sample the festival atmosphere and to give us some support.  They were both on fine form, were impressed with all the facilities on the festival site and were keen for the music to begin.

After viewing and talking to some of the stage managers in the Sabrina Marquee we then went off to put some of our CDs in the relevant shop outlet on site.  How pleasing then to overhear, as Rob was engaged with the shop owner, a festival-goer asking to buy one of our CDs before we had even played a note.  So, with a little spring in our step, we headed back to the car to pick up our bags and walk the short distance to the city centre to check into the house where we were being put up for the next two nights. 

We walked alongside the beautiful River Severn, up past The Bird in Hand pub where we were due to pay the following day and in to central Shrewsbury. 

We really couldn’t have asked for better accommodation than the festival organisers had arranged for us. Two hugely community-oriented individuals, Peter and Geoff, had very kindly agreed to put us up in their beautiful house by the river.  When we arrived, Geoff was there to meet us and, after he showed us our rooms and relevant facilities, we all had afternoon tea in the garden watching dozens of small birds feasting on the bird feeder.  Our rooms were private and beautifully furnished and, as we were to discover, our hosts were the very personification of kindness for the whole weekend. 

Fully settled and refreshed, we then headed back to the festival site to get ready.......to kick the festival off.  We collected the gear from the car and made our way to the Purity Village Stage, an covered stage in the centre of a large open space around which many craft vendors set up their stalls.  Seating was laid out in the open air around the stage for 350-400 people and, by the time we got to the stage, sound technician Izzi was already hard at work putting the final touches to the p.a. system.  We met MC for the session, Neville Street, and chatted a while with him; we were going on first, to be followed by two more acts before the main stages on site struck up for the evening. 

As 5.00pm approached, increasing numbers of festival goers started to take up the seating.  Many had arrived through the afternoon and were by now ready to hear some music.  By the time we started, nearly all the seats were occupied and there was a decent crowd standing to the rear and the sides of the seating area.  It was very encouraging to see a number of our friends in the audience. 

To commence proceedings, Neville paid a fitting tribute to Alan Surtees - one of many over the weekend - before introducing us to the audience.  Encouraged by the excellent sound Izzi had set up for us, we provided a pretty upbeat and varied 45-minute set to get festival proceedings going and I’m pleased to say that, from comments we received immediately after the set and from people speaking to us over the course of the following couple of days, the audience appreciated what we did.

It was really lovely to speak with so many of our friends once we had come off stage.  Karen and Phil came and chatted briefly as did Robin Mansfield and Marion and Andy Treby  from Cambridge Folk Club, Ruthie Bramley from Ely Folk Club, Christine Connelley from the (sadly now defunct) Herga Folk Club, Rose Jenkins who had organised a gig for us in Yarpole in May and some audience members of who had seen us at the Bracknell Folk Club earlier in the summer. 

Our next performance was not until 10.30pm when we were due to finish the evening in the impressive Sabrina Marquee.  So, we took the opportunity to go and grab some of the food laid on in the Artists’ Reception area.  I won’t namedrop because I’m bound to forget someone but suffice it to say there were a lot of famous folk faces in the canteen tent tucking into the same excellent meat and vegetable curries that Rob and I were enjoying.

By this time the larger stages were coming to life and after listening to Joe Broughton’s marvellous Conservatoire Folk Ensemble warming up while we were eating, we were very interested to then go and spend an hour listening to local early music ensemble K’antu playing music from a splendid new music project called ‘The Sky Begins to Change’ which they have been developing with the residents of old people’s home in Shropshire and other counties.  We then took the chance to have half an hour listening to the stunning Sarah Jarosz.

It was then time for us to make our way over to the Sabrina Marquee for our own evening performance. Having a nice backstage ‘green-room’ area makes it so much easier to get tuned up and settled for a big festival stage.  As we did so, we listened to the excellent guitar work of local musician Chris Quinn.  From the deserved applause, it was clear that there was a sizeable audience out in the Sabrina Marquee.

The technicians did a great job ‘front-of-house’ and on the monitors to create a great sound for us – thank you Matt, IZZI and Chris.  The stage management was very efficiently run by Tony and we were physically set up on stage quickly and consummate MC Bob Bignell, well known from Bromsgrove Folk Club, did a great job introducing us ....and we were on.   

Although it is never easy to see much past Row 3 when the glare of the stage lights is fully upon you, we could tell from the applause, the responses to jokes, etcetera, that there was a healthy audience present for us in the Marquee.  This was doubly pleasing given that the Oysterband and Ragged Union were both on other stages at the same time.  Again, I believe we played a good 60 minute set and the response from the audience, both at the time and in comments after the show, was very enthusiastic.

So, we came off stage around 11.30pm, packed up our gear and, to the strains of the Oysterband, made our way across the festival site to the car and then on through an impressively lively Shrewsbury town centre to our accommodation.  It had been a very long day but a hugely satisfying one.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, the excitement had been such that, despite the lateness of the hour and the comfortableness of the bed, (for me at least) it took quite some time for the adrenalin to dissipate and for sleep to arrive.  On to Day 2...

Saturday 26th February 2017

After a somewhat fitful night’s sleep for me at least, Rob and I were treated to a lovely breakfast by Peter and Geoff before setting off back to the Shrewsbury Folk Festival site on Saturday morning.  Once there, we checked on CD sales (which were very decent) and had a coffee before getting our gear together and walking the ten minutes off site to the Bird in Hand pub where we were to begin the lunchtime programme at midday.

We arrived in good time in the lounge bar of The Bird in Hand which was reasonably intimate in size and had the familiar air of a folk club about it.  There were a few people already there when we arrived but numbers quickly swelled and by the time we started the room was virtually full.  As people met up with old friends, the atmosphere in the room was warm.

We were introduced to the audience by MC Derek Droscher who, with his wife Mary, will be well known to all those familiar with the famous Banbury Folk Club and Festival.

Despite the early hour, it wasn’t long before the audience were picking up the choruses and singing along with gusto.  By the time we had finished, it was pretty much standing room only and we were more than happy to give an encore before ceding the floor to Jamie Huddleston who was coming on after us.

Having finished and chatted with a few audience members, we then left the pub (and what looked like an excellent selection of beers - which we don’t drink before performing) to head back to the festival site.  It was nearly nine hours until our next listed performance, so we had plenty of time to go for lunch on site, do some admin and see some great music.  We had also been invited by BBC Radio Shropshire’s Folk Programme organiser, Genevieve Tudor, to perform a live internet session for her from her radio yurt just near the main stage area. 

So, after an excellent and spicy chilli con carne for lunch, we headed to Artists’ Reception for a cuppa. While there, we took the opportunity to complete our PRS forms.  By this time, the first performance of a revival of Peter Bellamy’s Folk Opera, ‘The Transports’, featuring the cream of the modern English folk scene, was starting up on the festival main stage in the Bellstone Marquee.  This performance, over the course of nearly three hours with a break, was deservedly cheered to the rafters by the huge audience packed into the Marquee.

Indeed, such was the applause, there was little point trying to do a live internet recording in Genevieve’s neighbouring canvas yurt.  So, after the show was finished we made our way to the yurt and, along with a nice chat with Genevieve, performed first our new song ‘Sisters and Brothers’ and, second, our translation of a Wallonian folk song which we have called ‘If I had but one true love’.  I have looked for the broadcast since the event but have not yet been able to find it. I guess it might just have gone out into the ether and that was that but, on the basis that Rob and I felt we’d given good renditions of both songs, if I find it I’ll publish it on Facebook for others to View.

Having completed the broadcast, we had a modest evening meal back at Artists’ Reception and then made our way, first, to see our near neighbours and fellow performers at Cambridge Folk Festival Club Tent, The Boxwood Chessmen.  As at Cambridge, Brian Causton, Penny McLaren Walker and their colleagues were excellent and provided a well appreciated set on the Purity Village Stage. 

After that, we made our way across to the Sabrina Marquee to watch John Kirkpatrick and then Greg Russell play. 

As we entered the Sabrina Marquee it became immediately obvious that John Kirkpatrick was performing to a very full house, acoustically.  This turned out to be as a result of an electrical fault that had affected part of the site.  What a trouper he turned out to be!  Even without the aid of a p.a. system, John Kirkpatrick was still able to hold a very sizeable audience in the palm of his hand in a major auditorium for a good 25 minutes solely through his wit and virtuosity, until the problem was eventually resolved.

John was followed by newly emergent young folk star, Greg Russell who proceeded to deliver a punchy 45 minute solo set punctuated by some excellent repartee and interaction with an audience that clearly (and rightly) loved him.  It was great to finally see him in action and we very much enjoyed our brief interaction with him back stage later that evening.

We then wandered back to the car to pick up our gear and return for our next stint at the Sabrina Marquee where we were closing proceedings there for the second night running. Again we changed, tuned up and got ourselves ready backstage, listening to the joyous thrilling music of TwoManTing. The weather through the Saturday had been glorious, with no cloud cover.  As such, the hot day was being followed by a distinctly chilly night. As such, in my case my show shirt was covered by a comfy cardy until it was time to go on.

Bob Bignell was again MC and we thank him for his kind words when introducing us to the audience. Given we had finished the evening in the same tent the previous night and were worried that any audience members who’d been there the night before might think we were going to perform the same set, we consciously changed the set pretty dramatically.  Again, up against two mighty competing attractions like Eric Bibb and Cara, we were very pleased that retained a healthy sized audience for our 60-minute set. 

As we peered through the spotlight glare, we could see some good friends from Baldock Folk Club in the front row which was nice and, after the show, we had some lovely feedback from people coming up to the front of the stage to speak to us.  It was nice to be told that “you are our ‘let’s pop in here and see what’s happy, blimey that was good’ act of the festival” by one and to be complimented on contributing to keeping the social commentary aspect of folk music alive, by another.

By the time we’d gathered up the gear and slipped back outside the marquee a heavy dew had formed on the grass outside; it was going to be a frosty night. Feeling very satisfied with four good performances over two pretty full days, we were determined to find a pint somewhere.  As we left the site to return to our accommodation, we could hear sounds coming from inside The Bird in Hand pub – so we quickly popped in for an excellent pint of local delicacy, Butty Bach, which went down a complete treat.  A great find at quarter past midnight...

Relaxed, fatigued and with the benefit of a little beer, Saturday night, proved to be a much better night’s sleep for me at least.

The next morning we were treated to a memorable full English breakfast and some really stimulating chat with Peter and Geoff.  As we said our thanks and goodbyes to our hosts and made our way back to the festival site to head for home, we were engaged in conversation on the way five or six times by festival goers saying how much they had enjoyed the various sets we had performed.  Knowing that we had really engaged with audience members certainly put a spring in our step that morning. 

After saying our brief goodbyes to the staff in the Artists’ Reception area, we ‘fired up the Quattro’ as the saying goes, and headed for home.  Apart from the deep mysteries of how one actually gets from the M54 to the M6 Toll, the roads (including the M6 proper – as we missed the Toll) proved fine and we were home in time for Sunday lunch.... and, in my case, a cold beer.

Very many thanks to Sandra Surtees for the invitation to perform at the Shrewsbury Folk Festival. It is a great, friendly, festival of music held on a lovely spacious site where the people seemed almost universally friendly and everything appears to be run efficiently and effectively. Similarly, many thanks again to Genevieve Tudor for propelling our music across the airwaves.  Thanks to Neville, Derek and Bob for their excellent MC-ing and to all of the sound technicians that did such a great job ‘front-of-house’ and on the monitors for us. Finally, very many thanks to the very best of hosts, Peter and Geoff.  If we are ever lucky enough to be invited back to the lovely Shrewsbury Folk Festival, we will make a special plea to take pleasure in your hospitality again. 

What a great time we had last night as guests of the Cambridge Folk Club, performing as one of a number of representative bands at the Club Tent on the Cambridge Folk Festival site at Cherry Hinton Lane.

Despite the best efforts of the predictable Friday-night-in-the-school-holidays road chaos, we managed to make it to the artists' car park and then onto the festival site in plenty of time for our performance. 

Once on site we immediately ran into friends, seeing, first, Patti and then Roger Pitt, organisers of the great St Neot’s Folk Club.

Once through security, the first sounds to reach our ears were the dulcet tones of Jon Boden and we lingered a while to watch the end of his excellent solo set on Stage 2 before moving round to the Club Tent area. 

The organisers of the Cambridge Folk Club have always been so kind and welcoming to us and it was lovely to see so many friendly faces backstage when we arrived at the Club Tent. There were lots of hugs and handshakes on arrival, warming tea was brought to combat the chilliness of the evening and we were able to spend a very pleasant half an hour catching up on the club’s news, both the happy and, with the recent passing of club stalwart Joan Woollard, the deeply sad.  It was also very nice, later, to catch up with Les Ray from trio Red Velvet.

Rob and I then went for a stroll around the festival stages to soak up some of the atmosphere. Despite the coolness of the evening air and the impending threat of rain, the site was - as it is every year - absolutely buzzing, with a ceilidh in the Stage 2 area and British country and western sisters, Ward Thomas, on the main stage.

By the time we returned to the Club Tent, the first of Cambridge Folk Club’s special guests had started their set.  I took the opportunity to slip around to the tent itself to see and hear what was going on and was very pleasantly surprised to see the entire Club Tent area completely full of people enjoying the truly excellent Boxwood Chessmen.  Indeed, the tent was so packed that those sitting at the front were asked by the compere if they could please stand up so that more people could come into the shelter of the tent rather than watching from outside in the worsening rain.

I stayed watching until the Boxwood Chessmen had finished their excellent set and the very talented Emily Mae Winters, and her band had sound checked and set up, before returning backstage to listen further and to begin tuning up.

While Rob and I were tuning up, the truly lovely Hannah Sanders, whom we had first met a few years earlier at the St. Neots Folk Festival, spotted us backstage and came over to have a chat.  It was nice to be able to tell her how thrilled we were by her and Ben Savage’s current successes together and she, in turn, was very generous to us.

As we chatted, the sound techs arrived to marshal us towards the side of the stage in readiness for Emily Mae Winters finishing her set.  Like us, the Club Tent audience were clearly loving what she was doing, and she and her fellow musicians left the stage to loud and justified applause...We were on.

Given that the legend that is Shirley Collins was on the Main Stage and the phenomenally talented Cara Dillon was starting shortly on Stage 2, we were delighted that the Club Tent remained as packed for our performance as it had for the previous acts. We had decided to go for a lively set and ripped into Three Bony Ships and The Black Widows as immediate starters. We then slowed the pace temporarily with Time Wears Awa', before playing a couple of fast and furious muineiras, our new song Sisters and Brothers, two more tunes, and then out with our 'folk rock' standard, Navajo & Pirates.

The sound engineer was on great form and when that happens it just makes you want to push your performance that bit further.  Through the stage lights, we could make out people singing and dancing, we could hear people clapping along (and maybe even a tambourine in there somewhere). Anyhow, we ended our half hour set to resounding applause and plenty of whoops and hollers.

As we left the stage, it was really nice to receive the thumbs up from the Cambridge Folk Club organisers and then, to have a few enquiries about CDs for purchase.

As we packed away, it was great to hear five-piece Morganway get into their stride.  We hadn't come across their music before but they certainly sound like they’ve got a great future ahead of them.

We were still buzzing by the time we got back to the car, and the now continual rain couldn't dampen our spirits.  The holiday traffic had mercifully dissipated by now and the journey home was uneventful. In truth, we were still buzzing by the time we got home.  Speaking personally, I knew I was going to need that beer to rock me off to sleep.

Many thanks to Marion, Andy, Jim, Robin and all the members of the Cambridge Folk Club committee for inviting us to represent them in the Cambridge Folk Festival Club Tent and for their continuing encouragement and support for us and our music.

After an excellent evening performing at the Caerleon Arts Festival on Monday, we were excited to be returning to south Wales again for a Wednesday evening performance at the Llantrisant Folk Cub in Pont-Y-Clun.  The Llantrisant Folk Club is a vibrant club with a great schedule of headliners, and we were very pleased to be invited by club organiser Pat ‘Spoons’ Smith to perform there.

To avoid the rather grim experience of the M25 earlier in the week we set off in good time and, as the sun broke through, we were pleased to get ourselves onto the M4 without incident. Our luck lasted until we got to Wales when the additional traffic travelling to see Coldplay in Cardiff was enough to bring the M4 in Wales to a virtual standstill and we crawled for what seemed forever to our turnoff to go and meet with Pat for a bite to eat before travelling down to the club.  As we had hurtled past Bristol, we were concerned we might be ridiculously early but, in the end, we made it to Pat’s at just about the previously agreed time. 

When we arrived at her delightful cottage, Pat and fellow musician Ned Clamp gave us the warmest of welcomes and it was lovely to hear about what they were up to musically and to learn more about the activities of the folk scene in the Cardiff area whilst eating a lovely dish of freshly made lasagne.  It was nice to know that there was a lot going on in the area - in no small part down to the efforts of Pat, Ned and others.

Now nicely relaxed after the difficult journey, we jumped in the car with Pat and Ned and headed off to the folk club which was located a short distance away. The club itself is held in a spacious room in the clubhouse of the Pont-Y-Clun (Institute) Athletic Club. 

With its sizeable car park, parking up and unloading the gear couldn’t have been easier.  Once inside, we set up and were pleased to meet some of the club regulars.  We had a nice talk with Mick Tems who had partnered Pat in the duo Calennig for many years and who had given us a very pleasing review for our album Navajos & Pirates.  We also chatted with another club regular, Phil, who we had met at the Bromyard Folk Festival the previous year and who had brought a visiting friend with him to see us.

A competing folk event in Cardiff had apparently diminished the size of the audience for the evening. However, such is the strength of the club that by the time the evening began the large room was decently full.  As expected, we discovered the club to be blessed with a lot of musical talent and, before going on, we were treated to traditional and modern songs and tunes, poetry and even some opera!  The atmosphere and banter in the club is top drawer and encourages good performances from everyone.

Our own two sets appeared to go down well.  It was nice for Pat to join in on the muiñeiras with her trademark spoons playing and accompanied by Mick Tems on tambour.  The choruses were picked up and sang with gusto by the audience and our quieter stories were listened to attentively.  At both half time and at the end, audience members were keen to talk to us about the background stories to many of the songs.  When called for an encore, we concluded the evening on an upbeat note with Compagnons de la Marjorlaine.  (At half time, we were also treated to the legendary Llantrisant Folk Club raffle but, if you are interested in finding out more about this hilarious custom, well you’ll just have to get yourself along to the club itself!)

It was a long and a late drive home but thankfully Ned had shown us the quickest route back to the M4. The road works that were there on Monday were there again on Wednesday night and, thankfully, we escaped pretty lightly once more - it would have been a very different story if we had been going the other way.

Very many thanks to Pat for the invitation to perform at the club, and to her and Ned for their warm welcome and hospitality throughout the evening.  Thank also to all those that came along and joined in with us.  We wish the Llantrisant Folk Club all the very best for the future and will keep our fingers crossed that we can make a return visit to the club sometime in the future.

This year is the 80^th anniversary of the evacuation of 4,000 Basque children from Bilbao to Southampton.  It is also the 80^th anniversary of many of the battles that the British Battalion of the International Brigades fought in during the Spanish Civil War. Quite rightly, therefore, there are many commemorative events occurring this year and Na-Mara has been honoured to be invited to participate and perform in a number of them. 

On the 10^th July, we were asked to participate in a day commemorating the arrival of 56 Basque children (or “niños”) in the small southern Welsh town of Caerleon. To commemorate this act of longstanding generosity, the organisers of the Caerleon Arts Festival designed a day’s programme of lectures, films, town walks and panel discussions to remember the welcome given to the young child refugees in the town eighty years before. 

The event took place in the grounds of The Priory Hotel on the town’s High Street in a marquee laid out with an informative exhibition telling the story of the Basque Children. Authors Hywel Davies (Fleeing Franco – How Wales gave shelter to refugee children from the Basque Country during the Spanish Civil War) and Gail Giles (From Bilbao to Caerleon:  The Basque Child Refugees of 1937) were joined by Carmen Kilner, the Secretary of the Basque Children of ’37 Association to make up a very impressive expert panel to discuss the Basque children and their experiences in Wales.  This was complemented in the afternoon by a film made by Welsh TV journalist and rugby international, Eddie Butler called ‘Wales and the Basque Refugees: The Children’s Stories’ and a town walk to see the places where the Basque children stayed when they were in the town. To end the formal proceedings of the day, there was a panel discussion with local members of the Welsh Assembly, local councillors and others about what was happening today in Wales with respect to child refugees.

After passing through the daily nightmare that is the M25, we finally broke free onto the M4 and managed to arrive in Caerleon at around 3.00pm.  As the formal town walk was in progress at the time and the event marquee thus empty, we took the opportunity to unpack the p.a. and instruments from the car and get everything laid out in readiness for the evening’s show.  We then took the chance to have a look around the town ourselves – and what a fine and beautiful town it is!  This was the first time in Caerleon for both of us and we were keen to see where the Basque children had stayed and to see the town’s renowned historic Roman sites. 

As it was adjacent to The Priory, we headed first for the Roman amphitheatre and barracks. Caerleon was a major legionary fortress and had the facilities to match.  The large amphitheatre is very impressive in scale, and the ruins of the barracks readily convey the importance of this settlement in Roman times.  Like millions before us, we marvelled at the extent of Roman engineering prowess.  This said, we might give the practices of the soldiers’ latrines, as described on a poster by the town barracks a bit of a swerve – stick, sponge, vinegar.  Ask no more.

We then strolled through the town to see Pendragon House, now a B&B in Cross Street, and the plaque to the Basque children above its front door before wandering back to The Priory to put the finishing touches to our sound check for the evening’s concert.

Once we were content with the set up, we had a quick bite to eat in The Priory.  The restaurant is owned and operated by a family of Spanish heritage and the food looked excellent.  Sadly, 45 minutes before going on stage is not the time for a major meal so we settled for a few light tapas from the starter menu - but each dish was excellent.

Once replete, we headed back across the lawns of The Priory for last minute preparations for the concert. We had a final check of the p.a. and, as we checked tunings, a sizeable audience began to assemble and by the start time of 8.30pm for the concert, the marquee was pretty much full. 

We performed a first set of our and others’ Spanish Civil War and Basque children's songs and it was clear from comments at the interval that they had served as a moving end to an emotional day.  In our second set we showcased the range of other music we play and very pleasingly the audience clapped and sang along with our tunes and songs. 

To conclude on the story of the niños, as the evening drew to a close, we performed our song The Silver Duro.  This song tells the story of the eventual reunions with their families of some of the more fortunate Basque children, and it seemed to provide the day with some small element of closure. 

Both the animated nature of the audience as they chatted after the show and the kind words said to us as we chatted with audience members confirmed the evening to have been a success and Rob and I we couldn’t have been more satisfied with how the evening had gone.

Then, as all working musicians know, we moved into that final and grimmest phase of the evening, namely, the taking down and packing up of the p.a. gear before the drive home. IT was a great relief then that helpful members of the Arts Festival team were on hand to aid us significantly in packing up and getting on the road pretty speedily and, albeit we saw the wrath of Irrita, the goddess of motorway disruption, in multiple sets of roadworks on the M4, nearly all of them were on the other carriageway.  So, it isn’t clear whether many people made it to Wales that night, but we made it back to St Albans in decent time –certainly faster than a Roman could have got from Isca to Verulamium two thousand years ago.  Let’s hope it is the same when we return from our upcoming gig at the mighty Llantrisant Folk Club on 12^th July.

Thanks to Chris Thomas and all of the team at the Caerleon Arts festival for the invitation to perform in an important event to tell the story of the Basque children.  Thanks also to Carmen and John Kilner for their ongoing support and encouragement in telling the story. 

Finally, we would like to thank Frank Hennessy of BBC Wales who summarised the story of the Basque children in Caerleon and featured the event at the Arts festival and our song Only For Three Months on his Celtic heartbeat programme on Sunday 25^th June 2017.  For anyone interested in hearing it, it can be found between 32 and 42 minutes into his (excellent programme) by visiting this link   http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08vl704

This was a day for memorable speeches and performances.  As in 2016, we were again doubly honoured this July by two important organisations. 

First, we were thrilled to again be invited by the organisers of the International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT) to perform three songs at their annual commemoration in honour of all those who went from Britain and elsewhere to fight Franco’s fascist forces.  Then, later that day, we were similarly pleased to perform again for the Refugee Tales organisation, an outreach project of Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group inspired by the experiences of those held in immigration detention at Gatwick and which campaigns for the end of indefinite immigration detention.

The IBMT event happened at lunchtime at the IBMT memorial to those who travelled to Spain to fight in the second half of the 1930s which is located in Jubilee Gardens, close to the London Eye. 

This event is always emotional and well attended.  Speeches this year were given by Len McCloskey of the UNITE union, Tosh McDonald of ASLEF and, movingly, Herminio Martinez, one of 4,000 Basque children who were evacuated from Bilbao and brought to Britain in May 1937 following the indiscriminate and criminal bombing of market and other towns in the Basque country, most famously, Guernica.

We sang three songs, Ewan MacColl’s Jamie Foyers, our own song Only For Three Months about the evacuation of the Basque Children, including Rob’s father and uncle aged 5 and 7 respectively, and the battle song of the British volunteers, The Valley of Jarama.  Other music was provided by the excellent Maddy Carty whose beautiful, silky, vocals delivered strong political messages and deservedly won great plaudits from the large crowd gathered.

We usually stay on after this event for a pub lunch and a chat with other members of IBMT. However, this year, we needed to be on our way pretty sharpish to get to Walton-on-Thames for our second performance of the day.

Each year, over the course of a number of days, the Refugee Tales project walks to Westminster from a location outside London in an act of solidarity with refugees, asylum seekers and immigration detainees. Working directly in collaboration with those who have experienced the UK asylum system, the organisation takes Chaucer’s great poem of journeying, The Canterbury Tales, as its model and invites established writers to tell a series of tales of the refugees’ experiences on the way.  Through this sharing of tales, the project gathers and communicates experiences of migration, seeking to show, in particular, what indefinite detention means.

This year the planned walk was from Runnymede, where Magna Carta was signed, to Westminster and we had been invited to perform on the first evening of a five day walk.  The event took place at the Riverhouse Barn Arts Centre in Walton on Thames.

Rob and I arrived in the town in good time and took the opportunity to have a little walk around and grab a bite to eat before repairing to the Arts Centre.  Once inside the Riverhouse we met up with venue manager Nigel Greenaway who was organising the sound for the evening (and many more things besides). We were able to have a good sound check with Nigel before many of the walkers began to arrive.  Not long after the sound check, we met up with the Refugee Tales organisers and, soon after that the theatre began to fill..and fill..and fill.  In the end, there was not an empty seat in the auditorium, and the atmosphere was electric.

It was both an intellectual treat and an honour to share a platform that evening with award winning author and Man Booker Prize nominee Neel Mukherjee, who presented The Soldier’s Tale, internationally renowned poet Hubert Moore who read from his own work, and star of theatre, film and TV, actress Sorcha Cusack, who was an excellent MC for the evening.. 

We were also most powerfully addressed by a young man, Ajay, who had been helped by dedicated activists to move from living on the streets of Kathmandu to starting a university career in the UK.  His moving testimony of resilience in the face of immense hardship, multiple setbacks in both Nepal and in the UK, and his experiences of being placed in indefinite detention in the UK could fill a whole shelf of books.  One can only wish this dynamic and driven young man every success in his future life.  What an asset he must be to those around him and to wider British society which he is keen to contribute to.

I’m pleased to say that our own performance seemed to go down well, and we were warmly applauded and received many kind words after the event closed.

Many thanks to the organisers of both the IBMT annual commemoration event and the Refugee Tales for their invitations for us to perform.  As well as the thrill of participating in these important events, we also learned a huge amount about many things through the course of the day.

In summer 2016, a representative of the Worms-based Jazz and Joy Festival attended the St Albans Folk Day and identified a number of bands and musicians to invite to Worms the following summer.  The invitation to perform on the opening night of the festival was part of celebrations to commemorate 60 years of Städtepartnerschaft or town-twinning between the cities of St Albans and Worms. WE were fortunate to be amongst the other invitees along with the splendid St Albans trio Said the Maiden, (Hannah Elizabeth, Jess Distill and Kathy Pilkington) and a band formed for the occasion, Country Cousins starring local folk legends Alison Macfarlane, Bill Redway, Ross Scrivener and Dan Raza.  This is the story of our weekend in Germany

 A 5 o'clock start is quite a normal time for setting off to a gig. Most times it is 5 p.m. but this time it was 5 a.m. and were off to Heathrow to catch a flight to Frankfurt before moving on to Worms to play a concert with other local musicians from the St Albans area. Way above and beyond the call of duty, Jane, had volunteered to get up early and deliver us to the airport at that ungodly hour which, with the motorway mercifully free of traffic, she duly did.

Fellow musicians will well appreciate that airline instrument policies are always a worry, and this trip was no exception; ‘what must you put in the hold’, ‘what can you carry on board’, is that instrument to big, too heavy, etc etc? The last thing any musician wants is to be stopped at the airport knowing that he or she has to get to somewhere where an audience will be waiting – you need your instruments, and you can’t miss the flight.

We had chosen a particular airline for what looked like its more flexible instrument policy, and I'm pleased to report there were no hiccups on the way out. It all went very smoothly and, bedecked with a zillion ‘Fragile’ and ‘Zerbrechlich’ stickers on them, the instruments arrived safe and sound at the end of the flight, in Frankfurt.

Frankfurt airport is very familiar territory for Rob and with his on-hand knowledge we sailed through the airport, found one of the (far too) scarce ticket dispensing machines and mounted the train to Worms, changing at Mainz.  However, just when it was all going so smoothly, the Deutsche Bahn laid on a special treat on this last leg of the journey to make us both feel at home, namely, a problem on the line and a replacement bus service. Not surprisingly, given replacement buses aren’t waiting around the nearest corner just in case, this took a fair while to get organised and Rob and I were treated to a lengthy view over the Rhine in teh sunshine from the bus stop outside Nierstein railway station. Thankfully, we weren’t under any time constraints, so the eventual replacement bus service ended up providing us with a delightful tour of the local wine growing villages; very pretty indeed.

Once we arrived in Worms, we made our way over to the hotel where all the musicians were being billeted for the weekend.  Still with a little time available, after checking into the hotel, we strolled back into town for a look around and a bite to eat. Once spotted on the menu, it just had to be schnitzel.

Replete, we then returned to the hotel for a tune up and a bit of a rest and rehearsal before meeting up with the other St Albans musicians and being taken by car to the venue.

It was a splendid summer's evening and much of the old town of Worms had been sealed off in preparation for the Jazz and Joy Festival. We were first taken with the other musicians to see the stage and then directed to possibly the best set of green rooms ever. Rob and Ihad our own fridge full of beer (which we eyed for later as we don't drink before playing), tokens for food and drink from around the festival site, plenty of fruit, naughty snacks, plus a dining table and armchairs. The three armchairs certainly looked tempting for a snooze but there was work to be done.

After the thoroughly professional sound checks were completed, the concert began almost immediately.  By this time an audience of between 150 and 200 had assembled in a delightful plaza outside the historic Youth Hostel, standing and sitting around tables enjoying beers and snacks. 

The Country Cousins went on first and delivered an excellent set containing self-penned material by Dan Raza, traditional material from around the UK and New Zealand, and they finished with Ross Scrivener’s anthemic, ‘Let’s Work Together’, which captured the mood of mutual interest and respect between peoples and soon had the crowd clapping and swaying.  They left the stage to a major and lengthy round of applause. 

The Country Cousins were then followed onto the stage by Said the Maiden who delivered a classy set with their trademark close harmonies and superb musicality.  Kathy introduced the set in German and, as with Alison’s introduction for the Country Cousins, this was met with appreciation from the highly engaged crowd. As with the Country Cousins, Said the Maiden also left the stage to loud, appreciative and well-deserved applause.

We then took to the stage.  We were a little concerned that, with an opening concert for the jazz festival kicking off on a nearby stage (Matt Bianco & New Cool Collective), we might get some sound bleed into our set.  However, perhaps protected by the bulk of the Youth Hostel building behind us, this was avoided and we were able to deliver an untroubled performance. Given the circumstances, we deliberately kept the set upbeat and probably included more traditional material than our usual shows, and it seemed to pay off.  It was a delight to see people smiling and dancing.  Like Alison and Kathy before him, Rob introduced both us and our songs, especially Navajos & Pirates, to the audience in German and they were most appreciative of him doing so.

From the kindness of people coming up to us afterwards and saying how much they had enjoyed the show (and the very healthy CD sales that followed) it certainly seemed as though the audience had enjoyed what we had done.

Many thanks to all the dignitaries from the St Albans town-twinning committee for coming to support all of the musicians on the evening of the concert.  Their kind words after the show were very much appreciated 

Now that we had done what we came to do, we could relax and have a glass of beer (or three).  Good draught beer and merguez sausages were very much enjoyed as were a couple of the beers from the fridge  - sadly not including the two that I managed to drop and smash on the green room floor. Thanks to Said the Maiden and the local hostel staff who helped me clean up.

Rather than take an early bus home to the hotel, most of the musicians stopped on and had a few beers.  We all then walked back together to the hotel on what was a pleasant and balmy night.  What a pity it was that one of our number accidently tripped over the concrete paving stones holding down a canvas awning and injured himself quite badly. Thankfully, he was attended to quickly by five members of the German Red Cross and we were soon on our way.

While some of the musicians had a last snifter in the hotel bar, Rob and I disappeared off to our rooms, happy but decidedly cream crackered.

The following day, Saturday 17^th June, musicians' duties switched from the Jazz and Joy Festival to the more formal aspects of commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the town-twinning between St Albans and Worms. 

Most of us were picked up after a leisurely breakfast and taken, with instruments, out to the Herrnsheim Castle, a beautiful historic building amongst the vineyards on the edge of Worms.   Having led a morning vocal workshop at a local school, Said the Maiden travelled separately and joined us there.

This was a formal occasion and the musicians were there to punctuate the speeches and presentations with a little music.  Said the Maiden started proceedings with a beautiful three part a cappella rendition of The Quiet Joys of Brotherhood, the beautiful poem written by Richard Fariña, set to Irish air My Lagan Love, and most memorably recorded in the UK by Sandy Denny.

Various speeches from senior municipal figures from both cities followed.  They touched upon the history of the partnership and the hard work that individuals from both cities had been doing to ensure the relationship was maintained and developed.  We then performed our version of the Scottish song of longstanding amity, Time Wears Awa’.

Further speeches, thank yous, an exchange of presents and a historic signing process then took place before the Country Cousins closed the event by reprising Ross Scrivener’s anthem from the night before, Let’s Work Together.

Canapés and drinks followed. However, Rob and I couldn’t indulge as we had our own workshop to present back in town in the early afternoon at the stunning new Wormser Kulturzentrum.

Two of the local dignitaries present at Herrnsheim very kindly gave us a lift, with our instruments, to the new culture centre where two young women were waiting to guide us to our studio for the workshop.

The workshop was small in participant numbers but big in enthusiasm.  A small number of local musicians and observers came along to enjoy the flavour of playing and listening to music from around the celtic world.  Rob expertly took them through some Asturian, Scots and Irish tunes and, given a demonstrable interest in the participants for songs, we also worked through the Irish classics, The Verdant Braes of Screen and The Maid of Culmore.  The particiapnts really enjoyed the hour and quarter we spent together while a journalist and photographer from the local Wormser Zeitung newspaper captured the essence of the workshop in words and pictures for the local community. Everyone went away happy.

So, coming close to the end of our visit, we had one last musical event to join, namely, a session in a nearby park outside the historic Cafe Pinel.  Rob joined the session while I returned quickly to the hotel and picked up our suitcase before joining everyone.  Alison had printed up some leaflets to explain to those sitting at the nearby cafe tables that, across the UK that day there were gatherings assembling in The Great Get Together, to remember the life and words of murdered British MP, Jo Cox, who had said in her maiden speech to Parliament that “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us’ – a fitting sentiment for the weekend in general. 

The session rolled around the table with everyone joining in on everyone else’s choruses.  Passers-by stopped to listen and take in the music and cafe customers sat around and enjoyed the session with evident pleasure. 

Then, as the afternoon wore on, it was time for Rob, I and fellow musician Dan Raza to make our way to the train station to again join the queue for the ticket machine rarer than hen’s teeth, and set off home. 

It was a very straightforward journey home and no mishaps or incidents to report.  The train to Mainz filled up with people dressed entirely in white who then, in high spirits, got off at Russelheim for what seems to have been a big dance party. Other than that, there was nothing of note to report.  The train was now half empty, Frankfurt airport was half empty and, mercifully, the flight back to Heathrow was half empty; all very civilized.  Then it was a 30 minute car journey home and a last beer before bed.

Many thanks to David Maier, Katharina Kaiser and their respective teams at the Jazz & Joy Festival for the invitation to us to join the event and also for looking after us so well while we were in Worms. Similarly, thanks go to Hubert Listmann and all those involved in both Worms and St Albans with the important town twinning initiative, for facilitating our involvement in both the festival and the formal commemoration event for the 60^th anniversary of the relationship between the two cities.  Finally, thanks to all of our fellow musicians and workshop participants who were such great company over the weekend.  We wish them all every success with their musical ventures  A final especial thank you must go to Alison Macfarlane not only for her hard work on this particular weekend but her ceaseless endeavour to promote and encourage folk music in St Albans.  We all owe her a major debt.