As our regular pub venue was unavailable for our last session of the year in December, eleven singers were instead hosted by Mac and Margaret at their home in Saltdean. We took turns in choosing from the “cold weather and winter” collection with nineteen carols, wassailing and other seasonal songs being sung, in between much convivial conversation and enjoyment of the very welcome mince pies and chocolates kindly provided on the house. Many thanks again to M&M for a lovely evening.
On the other side of the festive season, ten singers reassembled in January back at our upstairs room at the Lewes Arms. Despite it being Blue Monday, reportedly the most depressing day of the year in the Northern hemisphere, and this year also having Donald Trump’s return inauguration to cap it off (!), we were all in good spirits and shared cheerful greetings. There was a slight blip when the pub didn’t have our booking carried forward in the new diary so that we needed to wait for some diners, together with a couple of chess players who had spilled over from the club meeting downstairs, to finish up before we could start our singing. One of the chess players expressed an interest though and said she may return for a future session.
As in the December session, with no particular gig on the immediate horizon I went round the room for everyone to choose their favourites from the Christmas, wassail, winter and general songs. Since we have a couple of recently joined singers who are knowledgeable about music in general but relatively new to the folk scene, we spent some time, during introductions at the start and also between songs, talking in detail about the history of SDFS and about the songs, song collectors and folk as a genre, along with some personal anecdotes and memories about the songs and previous events, and ideas for future events*.
In the first part of the evening, we sang “Here We Come a-Wassailing”, “Home Lads Home”, “Wassail the Silver Apple”, “East Sussex Drinking Song”**, “The Magpie”, “Where Stormy Winds do Blow”, “The Woodcutter’s Song”, “One for the Rook”, “The Boar’s Head Carol”, “Hard Times of Old England” and “Sugar (Sussex) Wassail”.
After a slightly prolonged break due to the queue at the downstairs bar, we kicked off again. To get round the circle twice we agreed to sing a bit beyond our usual finishing time and got through the following: “Parting Song”, “The Turnip/Turmut Hoer”, “Hares on the Mountain”, “Seasons Turn”, “The Oak Tree Song”, “Fields Lie Silent” and “Life of a Man”.
I then had the final choice of “Thousands or More” before we set off home at 10:15p.m. Another lovely evening with good company and good singing.
From next month we will begin looking ahead to spring and beyond and I will send out suggested songs in advance of the February, March and April sessions.
Tina
*Fi and Rosie have suggested the possibility of singing at an apple pressing event at Wallands Primary School in Lewes in October and will obtain more information.
**One of our newer singers James works for a Lewes Brewery, and pointed out that there are now three, rather than one (Harvey’s of course) as in the original song which was written by our own Adrian Figgess in 2013 as a counterpoint to Hilaire Belloc’s “West Sussex Drinking Song”. Adrian was present this evening and agreed this change to his lyrics in verse 2: “They once had nine breweries – SIX more than they’ve got now!”(instead of eight more).
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