Monday 26th July 2010
I have been preoccupied. Firstly with Facebook and secondly with organising my escape plan from Stalag Luft 18. Many of the sessioneers who feature in this diary are also on Facebook and it provides a more immediate kind of communication and response. There are a couple of pages especially for followers of the antics of the sessioneers: Friends of “The George” Irish Session and Fans of the Bear Sessions.
The first of course refers to the fact that the nomadic session / workshop / lament that takes place on a Wednesday evening started off in the excellent George on Stone Street. It was in the middle of nowhere. It was in a dip which flooded every time it thought about raining and when the rest of Kent, even Capel Le Ferne was enjoying a crystal clear evening, Stone Street would be foggy. And still we went every week. East Kent Morris practised in the back on the same night. The Hooden Horse visited at Christmas (well one of them did). Drew served chips and french bread at half time and the real fire roared away with logs of wood. The bar had a jar which said ‘Musician’s Fund’ and every so often, there would be enough in it (donated by a kindly audience) to buy us all a drink. Many musicians of all calibres would congregate there and some of the evenings were truly memorable. There was even a Bank Holiday Celtic Folk Festival held there.
Then it closed.
I remember the evening when we all arrived to find the pub in darkness and standing around in the misty car park deciding what to do. Those of us who were there decided to go to the Hop Pocket in Bossingham where we played the first of our nomadic sessions in their conservatory. After that we roamed East Kent looking to regain that “George” feel without success. We tried the Chequers at Selsted, the Beverley in Canterbury and even the George on Stone Street after it changed hands to the unfriendliest landlord yet encountered. But the spiritual retreat for the music was for a long time at the Well Known Spoonerism. Regular readers will know where that is. And now it is at another George – this time at Molash where we practice safe sets. I hope the crowds return.
The Bear Session started as an Irish Session before the George Session but morphed into an English one by the time I joined it. And that suited me fine. Irish on Wednesday, English on Thursday. And that’s pretty much how it still is today. Back then, the musicians always got a free drink from the landlord. Strangely this session has stayed put firmly through many landlords (although it did move out to the Three Tuns for a while while waiting for a friendlier tennant who turned out to be the landlord of the Three Tuns). The pub is usually full of all sorts of interesting people, some of them are musicians, some are audience.
So, a little history of the two main sessions that feature in this diary and a Facebook page or two to join if you’ve a mind to.
And the retirement? Well, after a long and mostly enjoyable career mostly in education, I have the chance to stop working but maintain (more or less) the lifestyle to which I have become accustomed thanks to the Universities Pension Scheme. I started as a Secondary Science Teacher and it was at college that I became converted to Folk. It’s a one way conversion – there is no going back. Playing through the Book of English Penguins with ‘ a yard of German plywood and a capo’ in the common room. Morris teams were springing up (I joined Green Oak and then started Cheswold and later Luton. Yes, Luton) and some great folk clubs put on acts which would now be far too expensive to even comtemplate.
Anyway, working my way through the education system and keeping ahead of the sheer lunacy that trailed behind me (imposed by successive governments I must add) I moved though Further Education to Higher Education. They’ve all been ruined now. There is no academic freedom just commercial gain. Targets and league tables have killed the spirit of education and what little was left has been mopped up by Health and Safety and the ever present risk of litigation.
Thank God for Folk Music!