Ten singers came along to the Kings Head this month. We missed those absent due to illness, work or travel difficulties but had an enthusiastic band of equal numbers of men and women keen to enjoy old songs and learn some new ones from those agreed at the recent meeting of the three local group leads.
We warmed up with “Song of the Sussex Downsman” (the whole thing for a change) followed by “Twanky Dillo” and “Lammas Carol” (written by Alan from our Chichester group). For the upcoming Stanmer Fete, a celebration of the harvest and of apples, we then practised “Tommie” (a jolly tale of an apple scrumping lad, sung to the tune of “Fathom the Bowl”). Next, we revisited “My Downland Remembered” (from the poem by EV Lucas with a tune also by Alan, and he has now added an extra verse which we went through here for the first time). “Lark in the Morning” is an old favourite and we sang the chorus several times while making up individual harmonies as we went along, and it sounded as if there were six different versions which we will work on further in future. We ended the first half by learning a new song, “All Among the Barley” which we all liked very much, and we paid attention to the contrast between the slower straight metred parts and the faster “skippy” ones.
During the break, we discussed several upcoming public events and the AGM on 5th October. Staff ferrying food from the kitchen to the main bar said “Good singing” while passing through, which was welcome. For light relief we took turns to read out the ten best one-line jokes from the Edinburgh Fringe and then voted for our favourite. Our winner was from Ginny Hogan – “Everyone says your 20s are all about finding yourself. If that’s true, your 30s are all about wishing you’d found somebody else” – which we all thought could have come from one of Ray’s poems about the wry side of life.
Back to serious business we carried on with another song which was new to this group, “The Oak Tree Song” which we also enjoyed (just the beautiful tune tonight, we agreed to look at the harmonies next time). This was followed by the last “new” song for the evening “Juice-Alem” which is not a Sussex song but one written by a Worcestershire wassailer “William Bloke” to the tune of Jerusalem, in praise of good old English apples rather than French pommes. We agreed as group leads to allow this interloper as it's perfect for our Stanmer event. Now on the home straight, we continued with a bunch of old familiars – “Hard Times of Old England”, “Jim the Carter Lad”, and “East Sussex Drinking Song” (with solos on the verses, including one sung by Adrian, who wrote the song for us 10 years ago as a counterpoint to Hilaire Belloc’s better known West Sussex version) before winding up another enjoyable evening with “Parting Song”.
Any potential singers reading will be most welcome at future sessions, just turn up and sing, or get in touch via the blog if you want to chat first!
Tina
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