Last night's folk club was tinged with sadness. During the day his family and the village had said farewell to Bruce Wallace who died a couple of weeks ago. David earlier played 'The Fifty-First Highland Division's Farewell to Sicily' for him outside the churchyard after the funeral.
Bruce was the very first person to turn up at the folk club, saying in his modest manner that he wasn't really a folk guitarist. It turned out he was a lovely finger-picking jazz and ragtime player whose handful of Scottish tunes grew as time went on. He became one of we three core folk night participants from the village. We will always remember his favourite, 'Bluebell Polka' and his quiet presence and sensitive playing.
Peter later brought some cake made by a member of his staff for us to share in memory of Bruce.
This was likely to be the last visit of Mike and Chris who are shortly off to Ireland to take up residence in the Mountains of Mourne. We have thoroughly enjoyed having them visit the club and I am sure they will delight their new local clubs with their wonderful playing and singing.
We were very pleased to welcome Miriam (once again) and Laura who joined us on vacation having finished their first year as students of English Literature.
So to business; we were but a select few last night, but the songs and tunes were no less memorable for all that. Tunes were provided by Mike and David on uilleann and English small pipes (English fingering - gosh, pipes are complicated). At various points in the evening Mike played 'The Green Fields of Canada,' 'The Choice Wife,' 'The Castle of Drumore' and 'I am asleep. Don't wake Me.' David opened with 'Mount your Baggage' and 'Pawky Adam Glenn' and finished with 'Buy Broom Besoms' (the Scottish version of the tune) and 'Mr Preston's Hornpipe.'
Still in Battle of Waterloo commemorative mode, Eliza sang 'The Bonny Light Horseman' and David, 'The Plains of Waterloo.' As a former military man who used to train soldiers for duty in Northern Ireland, Robbie added to his repertoire a song by John Harvey Andrews, 'The British Soldier' and also gave us his rendering of, 'Over the Hills and Far Away.' Miriam made a judicious choice by singing, 'Where have all the Flowers Gone' (though before most of the other military ones) and Eliza did 'The Female Soldier' to the accompaniment of David's bodhran (though he thought it needed a bit of tlc, namely a drink).
As well as all of these matters military, there were some great songs of occupation from Chris' 'The Jute-Mill Song' (sung in her inimitable fine style despite house-moving related exhaustion) to Katy's 'The Dundee Weaver' and, later, 'The Miller' and David's 'Albert Berry' (the miner versus the coal) by Ted Edwards.' Mike's 'William Hollander' tells a tale of a young man who starts off as a cooper, is bound to work on a slaver with Captain Moore and how the captain became a pirate and his crew had not much choice but to follow suit and he eventually ends up in Newgate. There were also songs of food from Chris, the Irish, 'Colcannon or 'The Little Skillet Pot' and Katy's hilarious, the Scottish 'Jeely Piece Song.'
Miriam's highly accomplished 'Bryd one Brere', was not only sung in Middle English to the original mediaeval tune but she somehow communicated this as some guy addressing a bird on a briar. She gets the prize for the most original range of songs as she also sang 'The Old Penny Whistle' by Bruce Mainland.
That only leave the rather raunchy Burn's 'Dainty Davie,' though stupidly, as Katy pointed out, I missed out the most explicit verse (a Freudian slip in reverse - or perhaps the opposite). Her 'Dundee Weavers' had the better of me for bawdiness. My 'Who are you my Pretty Fair Maid' was no match. But Chris' 'Cupid's Garden' stole the laurels for the implied loss of virginity without so much as a word of it being spoken.
So there you are. All the best to Chris and Mike. We missed you Bruce, still playing...somewhere, perhaps. Eliza
