Lewes Local Group Report – Tuesday September 19th 2023

12 of us were at the Kings Head this month, with a good balance of voices and harmonies and including a new singer Rebecca. We looked at some of the songs for the upcoming “Stanmer Apple Day” in Brighton and also other seasonal items, as well as some general ones which fit into any season.

We warmed up with the well-known “Ale Glorious Ale” and “Sussex by the Sea” (trying out Worthing member Amaryllis’s alternative non-militaristic words, which we liked and thought could also be used at some events where appropriate) before revisiting one of our sea songs, “They Won’t Let Us Go To Sea Any More”. 

Next was “Juice-alem”, not a South Downs song but a tongue-in-cheek ditty about English apples agreed for use at Stanmer, before venturing into a suggested new item to try “Now Christmas is Come”, a traditional carol collected by Lucy Broadwood of Rusper from the “Singing Baker of Cuckfield”. This brought the usual mixed reactions to starting Christmas songs in September, and a reminder that this year there will be two separate practices in Worthing for those singing in the seasonal public events, so we needn’t get through all of them in the pub sessions. We were surprised when a man appeared from the main bar, saying he’d been misled – he’d thought he was going to hear folk singing, not this “God bothering”. We were unsure if he was joking, but after a brief chat he went back to the bar, and we didn’t see him again.  The first half wound up with “Bee-Boy’s Song”, another new song “Summer Is A-Coming in Again” and “Gooch’s Beer”.

After drink refills and chat, we continued with another new item “When It’s Christmas Time”, this time a more modern song by Glen Redman of Brighton Morris and Brighton Pub Carols, covering Christian Christmas but also family togetherness, changes in nature, Saturnalia and misrule, so something for everyone there! We revisited “Tommie” (a song about apple scrumping for the Stanmer event), learned a new short round “Banbury Ale” (written by Thomas Ravencroft in 1609) and sang autumn favourites “Fields Lie Silent” and “Lammas Carol” before ending a lovely evening with “Come Stranger Come Friend”.
 

Tina