Chichester Local Group Report - Thursday April 16th 2026

9 singers attended the March 26 Chichester Inn SDFS singing session.  A small but enthusiastic group led by Alan.  
 
Alan announced that at this session, he would be trying material that was proposed for the Fishbourne event, coming up on 2^nd May and Steve A would continue introducing the proposed songs for next year’s Chichester Fringe bid – Steve W confirmed that these are now located on a new part of the SDFS Blog – The Chithurst Songs. 
 
So to start the evening off in a rousing fashion, the group sang "Ale Glorious Ale" – sung with feeling!
There was a discussion about "The Young and Saucy Sailor" in relation to Fishbourne and this was removed from the potential set list as it was felt not enough people would know it, although it had been tried at Chichester on a few occasions.  "The First of May" was sung enthusiastically and all agreed it was a fitting song for the Fishbourne event – the day after May Day.  
 
Steve A then introduced the first of the potential Chithurst songs – "Valiants All".  He led the group through the song and following a fair amount of discussion, sorted out the various word scanning issues that arose.  He stressed the need for all to use the same timing and following this, the group had another go at the song and it seemed to be progressing pretty well.  He followed this with the more familiar "Stedham Oysterman’s Donkey" which certainly Chichester attendees had tried in the past.  It was agreed that the version of the song that has been on the SDFS website for sometime was the one that would be used.
 
For the last song of the first half, the group tried "The Cuckoo" and after some discussion about words to stress, felt confident that this could be included in the Fishbourne set.
 
Before the start of the second half of the evening, Henny checked with Alan the song list for Fishbourne and it was decided to add "Rose Buds in June" as a reserve.  
 
Carrying on with the new Chithurst possibilities, Steve A introduced "Mayner’s Whip" by singing it through.  It was felt that the tune was possibly a bit tricky for the choir and Henny suggested trying the words to the tune of Three Drunken Maidens with a further suggestion from Alan that perhaps Steve could recite this old traditional local tale as a poem with all singing the last lines to this tune.  This arrangement seemed to work very well!
 
As a great finale the group finished with "Oak and Ash and Thorn" – a further proposal for singing at Fishbourne on 2 May.
 
 
Anne Sartain