It was with great pleasure that we had accepted Patti and Roger Pitt’s invitation to conclude the afternoon club concert at the St Neots Folk Festival, held in The Priory Centre in St. Neots.  The St Neots Folk Club has been very kind to na-mara over the years and always provide the warmest of welcomes – so we were very keen to see everyone again.

Keen also to see some of the other club performers on through the afternoon, we set off for St Neots early after a brief lunchtime rehearsal.  We arrived in plenty of time to a warm embrace from Patti.  We grabbed a quick cup of tea in the town and made our way to see the performers.  The afternoon was a busy time for the festival organisers, with dancers in the town square and a variety of technical workshops being held in the Centre. However, taking advantage of breaks between sets in the club concert, we managed to quietly unload our gear at the back of the hall and settle down to see what was happening.

Sadly, we had missed Martin Kaszak’s performance but were able to catch up with him and his news during a break. It was great to see Pamela Ward and Paul Cherrington again, performing their lovely mix of folk and blues – great guitar work and powerful vocals. We were also able to catch Ron Squire’s entertaining set and hear, for the first time, the beautiful music of Hannah Sanders.  Hannah has a lovely voice and plays guitar and dulcimer really well.  It was very interesting to chat with her after the concert and hear about her influences here and abroad, and where she had been playing in the local area.  Check her out on http://hannahsandersfolk.com/ .

Our own set finished off the afternoon and, despite my having a bit of a headcold, the throat tickles were subdued by the adrenalin or that cuppa earlier or something, and we felt good about our performance.  It was really nice to see the Gwerziou set and L’Amant de Nantes beginning to fit into the set and, after finishing, we had lots of kind compliments from members of the audience and club members.

After packing up, saying our goodbyes and wishing Patti and Roger well for the evening concert, we headed for home.  We had had a lovely afternoon and were buoyed up by both the performance and the responses – and a cold beer was calling loudly. 

Many thanks to Patti, Roger and all at the St Neots Folk Club for the invitation to play at the festival and for, once again, making us so very welcome.

We are grateful to the club organiser of Uxbridge Folk Club, Archie McAulay, for his continuing support for na-mara.    Half way through our recent performance at the club he informed the audience that we are the only performers to have visited three times since the club was revived by Archie a few years ago.  We were unaware of that honour and were humbled to hear of it.

Travelling to the club separately for once, Rob and I met up with Archie ahead of the gig for a bite to eat and a general and very informative catch up about all things club and folk related.  Given the buffet nature of the meal, it took a lot of discipline not to eat too much, but we succeeded, just.  

The film crew who had earlier been working outside the restaurant, endlessly filming a crest-fallen women looking at a man getting into his car, had disappeared by the time we finally made our way back across to the club to do a sound check.

Once done, we had chance to chat with support act Lisa Winship and Andy Mathewson before the audience began to assemble. 

Lisa and Andy kicked the evening off with a wide ranging set covering blues and ragtime as well as some of their own compositions.  Excellent guitar from Andy and beautifully smooth vocals from Lisa made for a very pleasant forty minutes in a style very different to our own. 

Later on in the evening, it was great to hear Daria Kulesh singing solo and with another member of Kara, the exciting new band she is involved with. We recently had the pleasure of appearing on Daria’s local Radio Dacorum folk programme and it was lovely to hear and see her in action and to catch up with all her news – including the event on 10th August when we will be appearing with George Papavgeris and Philip Henry and Hannah Martin.  We wish all the very best to Daria and Kara.  Kara certainly sounds an exciting line up and, with its mixture of instruments and cultural influences, will do very well. 

It proved a night for new songs.  Daria played one of her new songs, drawing wider lessons from the tragic deaths of ‘Butterfly Brothers’, Harry and Cody Churchill.  She and her Kara colleague also gave a first outing for one of his songs, Union Street - a moving song about love across the urban-rural divide, set on the Isle of White.

We played L’Amant de Nantes again and I’m pleased to report that is settling into the set very well now.  However, we also rolled out a new number when we played for the first time in public our new composition ‘The Garden of England’ which uses a very current example to tell the story of human trafficking and slavery occurring in the UK today.  The song reveals a dark and hidden side to how food arrives on our tables.  The song tries to convey the menace for people caught up in that situation and is technically quite tricky.  However, we delivered the song well and Rob’s mandolin solos were a treat.

It was nice to chat with members of the audience on the way out about a number of our songs and instruments, and we were roundly thanked for a stimulating evening.   We thank Archie for his continuing support for na-mara and wish him and all at the Uxbridge Folk Club, the very best for the future and especially for its Ickenham Music Festival Folk Weekend in early June 2013.

It was with huge pleasure that we received an invitation to play once more at Redbourn Folk Club. This was partly because it is a lovely and welcoming club to play at but also it meant that the club was evidently in good health under the new management of Jenny McNaught and Malcolm Hobbs. Jenny and Malcolm have recently taken the reins following years of great service to the club from Jan Strapp and friends.  If our experience of the club is anything to go by, they look to be making a really great fist of it.

There were pleasant surprises galore throughout the evening we were there.  Jenny and Malcolm are both very fine performers and it was, therefore, a real pleasure to hear Malcolm open the evening.  Jenny had to stay active on the pleasingly busy door.  It was really great to then see performers like Helen Chinn and Julian Mount from the Watford Folk Club do a spot each – both excellent performers.  Later in the evening, we had the further pleasure of an extended spot from The Raven, a duo we have met many times on our travels to clubs and festivals around the South East.  This time they were visiting our home turf and they were as good as always – great musicianship and harmonies.

It was also very nice to see a number of our closest friends from St Albans in the audience.  Malcolm and Jenny had advertised the event the previous Sunday on Daria Kulesh’s Radio Dacorum folk show, and Rob and I had joined the programme a little later to play a few of our songs and tunes.  This may have helped attract a few more people. Certainly, the club room was full fairly early into the evening.

For our part, we felt we played two good forty minute sets and were able to roll out some new Breton and French tunes as well as perform our newly completed translation of L’Amant de Nantes that we learnt from La Bergère but which has also been recorded by La Chavanée.  There was a pleasing call for an encore at the end and we subsequently received very warm feedback from friends and club members alike as the club tidied up after the event.

With Redbourn being so close to home it also meant there could be no motorway hold ups and we were home for a last cuppa before turning into pumpkins. 

Many thanks to Jenny and Malcolm for both the initial invitation and for the warm welcome at the club.  We wish them every success and know that by continuing to do the great job they are doing, they will help the Redbourn Folk Club maintain the great vibe it has had for many years under Jan’s prior direction.

Albeit tired from the journey back from Spain, the brilliant sunshine perked us both up no end as we set off for the south coast for our first ever visit to the Hove Folk Club, organised by none other than the irrepressible Robb Johnson himself.

Unfortunately, the prospect of a sunny and dry bank holiday had encouraged many to leave work a little early and set off o journeys for distant parts.  We could tell, even on the suburban roads of leafy St Albans, this was going to be an epic journey – and so it came to pass.  Slow moving traffic was signalled for junctions 17 to 13 and junctions 10-7 of the M25 and I have to confess that I didn’t see that much of an improvement in the gap in between.  The four hours to Hove was just a little shy of the time it took us to reach Bilbao a few days earlier.

However, we were there in time to meet up with Robb ahead of the club opening; so all was well.  The club meets in a nice sized room above an excellent real-ale pub (The Poet’s Corner on Montgomery Street).  It is a well supported club and the room filled up quickly.  As with so many clubs, the welcome was warm and we were pleased, as always, to see the familiar faces of friends and family who lived in the local area.   

Robb kicked the evening off in characteristically pugnacious style which really got the room in the mood. There was then a healthy round of floor singers, singing a wide range of traditional and self-penned material. 

We felt we did a good first set and certainly enjoyed some lively conversations with club members during the break.  The second half of the evening followed much the same pattern with Robb kicking off with a new song and club members providing some excellent floorspots. 

In the first half, we had rolled out our new medley of two Breton tunes and a well known French tune without any mishaps - which was nice after all the hard work we had put into them.  Similarly, in the second half, we played for the very first time in public our translation of the French song L’Amant de Nantes, as learned from the wonderful playing of both La Bergère and La Chavannée.  I am pleased to say we played it well and it was well received by the audience.

With encouragement from club members, Robb kindly allowed the second half to push a little beyond the declared closing time for the club but, sensitive to the neighbours, we kept our encore nice and quiet and finished off with the Spanish lullaby Añada Pa Julia. 

Many thanks to all at the Hove Folk Club, and to Robb Johnson in particular, for a very generous and warm welcome. 

Thankfully the M25 was pretty clear on the way back apart from the endless bouts of lane closures, and we were home for 1.30am. 

It was an early start on Monday 29^th April for na-mara’s long awaited trip to play a concert in Logroño in the Rioja region of Spain in memory of the men and women of the International Brigades who so bravely set off to fight fascism in Spain in the late 1930s.

We hit the road around 6.30am and made our way to Stansted.  The journey went smoothly and we were able to park up and get into the airport in good time.   Having booked in on line, it was just the bag drop to deal with.  However, that did include putting my precious guitar into the hold.  With gritted teeth I placed it on the special items conveyor belt and it disappeared from view.  Rob was spared this through having an offer of a good classical guitar waiting for him in Spain and keeping his mandolin was his hand luggage.

Once though security, we hunted down some breakfast and awaited a text from our fellow performer in Spain, burgeoning Scots folk superstar Ewan McLennan.  We had had the pleasure of meeting Ewan last year at the annual International Brigade Memorial Trust (IBMT) commemoration in Jubilee Gardens in London, and were greatly looking forward to spending some time with him.

Together, we made our way to the boarding gate and onto a packed flight to Bilbao.  Clearly, Ewan’s charisma and powers of persuasion are greater than mine as he had managed to get his even more precious guitar into the cabin.  So, it was only me worrying if my instrument would be matchsticks by the time we got to Spain.

After about an hour’s delay, we did eventually set off for Bilbao.  We were aware the delay was causing a few concerns in Spain as, in Logroño, a press interview had been organised for the afternoon.

However, all proved well in the end.  The flight was good, my guitar emerged onto the baggage carousel in one piece and we were able to meet up with wonderful riojano singer-songwriter Paco Marin, who had made the 90 minute journey from Logroño to pick us up, and his son who near the airport.  Despite being under a little pressure timewise, Paco insisted we ahve some (very good) food in the airport, after which we set off, over the mountains, to Logroño.

Once there, Rob and I were accommodated in a beautifully appointed flat owned by Paco’s son.  Ewan was staying with Jim Jump, a leading figure in the IBMT.  We dropped off the bags and set off for a walk across the neat, pretty, town of Logroño to meet the journalist who was writing a piece for the next morning’s La Rioja journal.  Given that Rob speaks Spanish completely fluently, he and Paco led most of the interview, translating for Ewan and me when required.  The newspaper’s photographer also took a range of shots of us as a group.

Interview over, we returned to the apartment to start rehearsals together.  The concert, which was taking place the following night, featured Paco, Ewan and ourselves doing songs from our regular repertoire. However, excitingly, there were also plans to do some collaborations.  Rob was going to join Ewan on his rendition of Jamie Foyers, and Ewan was going to join us on our song, Only For Three Months.  Then, there was going to be a joint rendition, with alternating Spanish and English verses, of the famous song of the British Battalion, The Valley of Jarama.  These all needed rehearsal and we set to work.

The rehearsals went very well indeed and at a reasonable hour we were able to join Paco, his wife and a group of their local friends who were involved in organising the concert the following evening and a Socialist and Trades Union organised commemoration the day after, of those from the local area executed by fascists at the outset of the Spanish Civil War.  We all assembled in an attractive and busy bar for some tapas and drinks.  The welcome was extremely warm and with the help of Rob, Jim and others, my inadequate Spanish was no real hindrance to communication or to having a great time.  Compared to the Brits, the Spanish eat late and stay up late – and so, a little later, we visited another bar for even more substantial drinks and tapas.  This was the first of our late nights.

Rested and refreshed after an excellent breakfast with Paco, the next morning saw us all head off to the town auditorium to meet the sound technicians and do our sound checks and have some further rehearsals.  The town auditorium holds around 800 people and we were aware that around 550 tickets had already been sold. As is always the case, it was great to get a feel for the venue and picture how a forthcoming performance might unfold.

A productive morning was followed by a gentle stroll around the town centre.  At the allotted time we all dropped into the local radio station where Paco and Rob were interviewed about the forthcoming concert.  After a very successful interview, we then resumed our tour of the town where, by happenstance, we bumped into the man who had designed the poster for the concert. Very generously, he quickly amended his plans for the day and, as someone highly knowledgeable about every aspect of the town’s history, adopted the impromptu role of tour guide and showed us yet more of the architectural and historical jewels of Logroño.

Our walk was followed by an excellent lunch with many of the same people from the night before.  My obvious lack of Spanish could not disguise the manifest pleasure I was taking in the Spanish food being provided which seems invariably to be of the highest quality. 

Following what turned into quite a late lunch, there was only time to return to the flat to get changed for the performance and stroll back to the auditorium to get ready for the concert.  Apart from needing to restring a second guitar to suit my style of playing, it was a relaxing time in the ‘green room’ doing some gentle rehearsal.  One of the obvious benefits of working so closely with Ewan was the chance to watch and hear him rehearse and get himself ready to perform.  Not only is he a most pleasant person to spend time with but it is ready for all to see that he is a dedicated professional and I learned a lot watching him prepare to perform.

As the time drew near for the concert to begin, we moved into position behind the stage curtain. Paco went on first.  Paco is well known and loved throughout Logroño and across the wider region as both a character and for his moving and powerful music and delivery.   Paco was greeted very warmly by the now crowded auditorium and by the end of a set, in which he was joined briefly by committed local historian and musician Jesús Aguirre on harmonica he was being cheered to the rafters. 

Then it was our turn. Rob had crafted a script for us in Spanish to allow us to communicate the full meaning of our songs to the audience and, with fingers crossed,  I kicked off by introducing our first song in Spanish.  IT was planned that the evening would not be wholly taken up with Spanish Civil War related material and our first song was The Flower of Magherally.   Following earlier tuition from Rob, being a decent mimic and having some familiarity with Spanish, I was able to introduce the song and we were off!  Despite the audience being somewhat unfamiliar with that sort of music, it was very well received.

On the next song, Ewan kindly joined us to play Only For Three Months which as many readers of this blog will know tells of the parting of parents and 4,000 Basque children in Bilbao in 1937.  Naturally, since his father was one of those children, Rob introduced the song. 

Our rendition entailed my handing over the song’s guitar accompaniment to Ewan.  I concentrated solely on singing and Rob weaved his lovely guitar solos as normal.  Ewan had added some very beautiful extra intricacies into the guitar accompaniment and the whole ensemble sounded beautiful and the audience, even with many of them not understanding the words, simply loved it

We then pressed on to play The Bite, which adopts the story of International Brigader George Wheeler to more broadly tell the story of the British Battalion of the International Brigade, and we finished with The Silver Duro, which tells of the reunion of some of the Basque children with their parents many years after the end of the Spanish Civil War.  It was clear that the performance had gone down extremely well in what was now a highly emotionally charged auditorium.

Ewan returned to the stage for his set and, after I had exited the stage, he and Rob did a very moving rendition of Ewan McColl’s song Jamie Foyers.  Rob then also left the stage and the pair of us sat behind the curtain and listened to Ewan’s performance, which was predictably excellent.  From memory, he performed Banks of Marble, Robbie Burns’ A Man’s a Man For a’ That and Arthur MacBride.  Rob continued to assist by introducing the songs.  However, with some simple words of Spanish, Ewan won the hearts of the audience pretty much immediately!

The concert finished with all of the performers returning to the stage to perform The Valley of Jarama, with alternating Spanish and English verses.  This was a fitting end to a great evening and the performance received a standing ovation, with all of us emotionally touched by the reaction.

After the concert, we joined the audience in the foyer and I can say with confidence that it has been a very long time since I have been hugged and kissed as much.  It was clear that the performance had touched many people and there was immense goodwill being shown to the performers in return. Slowly, the audience drifted away from a noisy and buzzing foyer and we were able to congratulate each other and begin to get our kit together, still glowing from the emotion shown.

Despite it being an evening concert, this being Spain there was still dinner to go to – and what a treat was in store.  Like many towns in Spain, Logroño has a number of gourmet dining clubs.  These are places where men get together and cook. We were to be the guests of honour – and we were certainly both hungry and thirsty after the night’s performance. The meal was so full of delicious cheeses, meats, sausages, vegetables, I couldn’t possible recount them all, and it was all washed down with the very best Rioja wines.  Apart from those who had been in the kitchen cooking through the evening, most of those attending the meal had been to the concert and the atmosphere was both happy and boisterous.  It was well after midnight that we reached our beds.  It had been a fantastic day.

The next day was altogether more sombre.  It was May Day and we were to attend a memorial ceremony at a place called La Barranca on the edge of the town in the pueblo of Lardero.  La Barranca means the ravine or gully and the ceremony was in remembrance of the more than 400 men and women who had been rounded up by fascists at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and executed in that ravine between the 10^th September and 15^th December 1936. 

After breakfasting with Paco, he drove us out to La Barranca in time to see the end of the commemoration of the dead by local anarchist activists.  As the red and black flags of the anarchists slowly melted away, the place became alive with the red banners, flags and scarves of the socialists and trade unionists as they assembled for their ceremony of remembrance. 

This is a moving memorial to visit.  When Franco was alive, there was no memorial permitted here. However, mothers, wives and other relatives of the deceased would come every November to remember their dead – watched over, abused and sometimes arrested by the Guardia Civil who stood on the nearby high ground looking down.  The bravery and dignity of those women is remembered by a statue to the Mujeres de Negro - the Women in Black.  Local families still hold their own private ceremony, away from the more generalised emotions of May Day, every November.  The emotions and memories of those terrible times remain raw to this day in Spain.

The memorial now consists of a striking statue commemorating the fallen, an enclosed garden of remembrance marking the place of execution, and a low, open sided, building where the names and places of origin of all those executed in the local area were listed. The building proudly sports the three colours of the Republican flag of Spain, red, yellow and magenta.

There were many emotional speeches, both from trades unionists and from relatives of the dead, linking the experiences of the past with the travails of modern day Spain. Early on in the proceedings, Paco played one of his songs and we all repeated our collective performance of The Valley of Jarama.   At the end of the event, the several hundred people in attendance drifted away, as did we, to join the May Day rally back in Logroño.

Politics remains alive and kicking in Spain and my rough estimate would be that the May Day march would have seen some 2,000 to 3,000 marchers touring the streets of the relatively small town of Logroño, before meeting up for a rally in the town square.

At the end of the march which, after stowing our instruments in a local bookshop run by local anthropology expert, Carlos Muntión, most of us repaired to the now busy Bank Holiday bars of the town centre for some drinks before lunch at another of the gourmet clubs of Logroño.  Rob is a great cook and being keen to find out what goes on behind the scenes, offered his services to the club and disappeared to help out.

After drinks, the rest of us picked up our instruments and went off to lunch – this time we were going to do some playing after eating.  Once again, the food was sublime (especially the white asparagus!) and conversation around the table was animated and interesting.  After eating, we gathered around one of the big tables in the club dining room, with previously unsuspecting diners from other tables joining us.  After that Ewan, Paco and na-mara played music intermittently for the next hour and a half – ably assisted at one point by a young girl from Belfast who had been telephoned by relatives in the room dining on a different table, and summoned to come and hear the music.  We played a wide range of our music, with Rob once again explaining their backgrounds. Pleasingly, the reaction was very warm and welcoming. 

This took us into the early evening and, having stowed the instruments again, we then went for a lengthy walk around the town with our new friends and colleagues with Carlos Muntión acting as our expert guide as we strolled through the old town and along the River Ebro in fading light.  The weather had generally been overcast and rainy throughout the visit.  However, it warmed a little that evening and the river walk was both pleasant and informative.

Naturally, we then returned to the still busy bars of the town for some further drinks and tapas – watching local people looking in disbelief at TV screens showing the great Barcelona going down three-nil at home and seven-nil on aggregate in the Champions League competition.

We then drifted back towards the apartment with Paco, his wife and a friend and we had a late night drink at a local bar.  (I would call it a last drink – but one never has a ‘last drink’ in Spain as it is considered bad luck to do so.  This is because the last drink is the one you have before you die.)

The next day, it was up early in readiness for a return to the UK.  We had breakfast, packed, Paco picked us up, we collected Ewan and our instruments from Jim’s and it was then back over the mountains to Bilbao and home. All went smoothly.  The dryness of the Rioja region, sitting as it does behind the coastal mountains gave way to a monumental amount of rain falling on Bilbao. Ewan’s luck finally ran out - with the bag drop personnel forcing him to put his guitar in the hold.  But the flight was on time, the journey home was smooth and uneventful and both guitars survived the journey.  Once we had checked the instruments were OK, it was a case of saying our goodbyes to Ewan and making it back to St Albans.

We very much enjoyed every aspect of our journey to Logroño.  The generosity and welcome of the people we met there was simply overwhelming.  They were great fun to be with and I certainly learned an enormous amount about Spain, modern and historical, and would like to thank them all for everything they did for us in the days we were with them.  My only dilemma now is whether I will ever be able to cope with pub grub again?

It was also a pleasure to spend time with Ewan McLennan and we wish him every success with his career and very much look forward to meeting and, possibly, playing with him again at some time in the future. 

Followers of na-mara will have read in this blog or in recent na-mara newsletters that, in June last year, Rob narrated a BBC Radio 4 documentary about the story of the Basque children evacuated from Bilbao in May 1937 and their and their own children’s experiences of growing up in the UK in the decades that followed.  Rob’s father and uncle were amongst the 4,000 children who landed at Southampton. 

As we have travelled the country since its broadcast, we have met many people deeply moved by the programme and one of those people, Fi Cotton, a modern languages consultant to local authorities, contacted us around Christmastime with the idea of writing a play based on the experiences of the Basque children.  The idea was that, through the story of the Basque children, young children today would learn about both an important episode in history and the importance of their being able to communicate with others who speak a different language.  In part, the vehicle for the play was our two songs, Only For Three Months and The Silver Duro – which respectively describe the initial parting of the children from their mothers and the final reunion between the children and their parents.

Fi’s idea was one that appealed to us immediately and we made it clear to her that, if she could make it happen, we would be more than happy to participate in what we were clear was an important project. 

Well, Fi is a woman of immense energy, creativity and charisma and she did make it happen! Working with a wonderful group of committed young actors and one of their teachers from the King Edward VI Five Ways School in Bartley Green, Birmingham, and writing a wonderful screenplay around our two songs, the first production of Hablemonos (or ‘Let’s Talk’) was performed on the 8^th March to around 110 younger children from three nearby schools.

We set off early from St Albans and got to the school for a 10.30am start. This allowed time for us to see the actors run through the play and understand where and how our playing would fit into the performance.  The play is very moving and cleverly draws younger watchers into the practice of speaking Spanish and getting involved directly in the action - through their being invited onto the stage to get on board the boat sailing from Bilbao to Southampton. 

The young actors had obviously been working very hard in previous rehearsals and we were collectively able to perform a decent dress rehearsal almost immediately after seeing the initial run through of the play.  We were also joined by the young Spanish teacher from the school, Anna, who was an excellent singer.  Anna had also been working very hard on the play and our music and she joined us seamlessly in singing The Silver Duro

By this time, it was getting close to ‘curtain up’.  There was time to grab a quick sandwich and then the younger children began to arrive from the other schools.  The weather was pretty appalling that day and the children were cold and wet.  However, Fi, who is superb in the way she interacts with children, soon had them absolutely enthralled and engaged in speaking Spanish, and ready for the experience of the play.

The play is cleverly written, working on multiple levels, and it was a real joy for Rob and I to see these young people engaged so completely, in a mixture of Spanish and English, with the absorbing and human tale of the Basque children.  How wonderful it was, every time Fi asked a question, to see a sheaf of hands shoot up, stretched as high as they could go as the children made best efforts to be the one selected to provide the answer.

After the show, which happened without any noticeable ‘first night’ hitches, Rob and I were able to spend a little more time with the talented young actors and Fi and Anna before grabbing a quick drink and making tracks for home.  The M42 isn’t the most pleasant place to be on a Friday tea-time, but we were both buzzing with the experience of the day and the long journey home flew by. 

We continue to work with Fi to see what else we might do together and where else this excellent project might go next.  However, in the meantime, we would like to thank and congratulate Fi on making such a wonderful idea happen and thank Anna and the cast of pupils from King Edward VI Five School for giving their time and talent to make that idea become a moving reality.

The night before holidays for both of us, Rob and I had the pleasure of supporting Les Ray and Deirdre Murphy in their wonderful 24 hour music marathon charity event, held at the home of the Cambridge Folk Club at the Golden Hind on Milton Road in aid of the Helen Rollason Cancer Charity.

Because we both had to be up and moving with our respective partners early the next morning, Les and Deirdre kindly let us perform on the evening of the 14^th February at an hour sufficiently early to let us both get home and have a decent night’s sleep. 

The place was already getting busy when we arrived at 7.30pm and it was good to see lots of old friends there from the Cambridge Folk Club as well as other friends from other folk clubs around the region, supporting the event. 

Everyone was penned to do a 30 minute set and, following some short and moving speeches to get the event underway, Red Velvet, comprising Les and Deirdre with others joining them, made a great start to the evening, getting everyone warmed up nicely.  We went on a couple of acts after Red Velvet and did an upbeat 30 minutes of material which seemed to go down well.

As we turned for home, already flagging a bit, our hearts went out to the poor souls who we knew would be playing into the early hours of the next morning.  However, we left in the knowledge that even at that relatively early stage in proceedings the Red Velvet’s Valentine Musical Marathon was already homing in on its fund-raising target. 

We are pleased to report that the marathon went the full 24 hours and completed successfully the following evening.  Recent news tells us that the even has now raised over £3,000 for a very worthwhile cause. Well done to Les, Deirdre and all those involved with another great night in Cambridge.

We have had the pleasure of knowing Jonny Dyer and Vicky Swan for a number of years now and have always admired their stunning musicianship.  However, we had never before seen them in action with Nick Hennessey, as the three piece seriouskitchen.   As such, when we were invited by The Milkmaid Folk Club in Bury St Edmonds to support seriouskitchen, we were delighted to accept. 

We had visited The Milkmaid twice before and know it to be a very well run club with excellent p.a., set up courtesy of the relaxed and expert Steve, and a team of dedicated folk fans who get the club readied on a Friday evening.  We arrived early for the sound check and took the chance to catch up with Vicky and Jonny’s news and give some late help with Nick’s crossword. 

Nick Hennessey is an immensely talented storyteller, singer and instrumentalist. His voice is glorious and complements the musical virtuosity of Vicky and Jonny perfectly. This current tour of serouskitchen splits into a 30 minute session of various songs and tunes and then, after a break, is taken up by an hour-long rendition of a Swedish folk tale – which I won’t spoil for anyone by telling anything of the tale of.  However, the trio manage, over the course of an hour, to weave a musical and oral spell that binds the audience into an ancient tale. If the show is coming to a place near you, go and see it.  With its drama and its humour, I hope it makes it onto radio and, perhaps with animation, would do very well as, perhaps, a Christmas special for TV.

Our own thirty minute set seemed to go very well, and we had some lovely feedback from audience members at the half-time break and after the show finished.  We very much hope to get the chance to make a return to The Milkmaid at some time in the future to play some more of our music, and we wish the club well with their plans for 2013.

Rob and I were fortunate enough to have been invited to play at the Tenterden Folk Festival back in October 2012 (reported earlier in this blog).  While there, we had the immense good fortune to meet up with Brian Hazelden of the Isle of Sheppey Folk and Blues Club.  Over and above being an extremely friendly person, Brian is also an extremely good cinematographer (or is it videographer – sorry Brian!) and, in the marquee at Tenterden, under difficult live venue conditions, took the best film of na-mara in action to date and very kindly sent it through to us to view.  We were both completely bowled over by its quality and were, therefore, suitably further impressed when Brian suggested that, under more controlled conditions, he could do even better and would be interested in doing some filming with us.  We did not need a second invitation and it was with delight that we travelled over to a special evening of The Isle of Sheppey Folk and Blues Club to do some filming with the club and Brian.

The weather was not great, but the roads were clear.  We set off in good time and the M25 was relatively kind to us.  This was the first time on the Isle for both of us and we both regretted arriving on a winter’s evening and were intrigued to see the full view over the Thames Estuary on a clear day at some time in the future. 

We made it to the club where Brian and friends were setting up and were made immediately welcome by the various club members who were helping out.

The evening proceeded as a normal club night – this was very much the atmosphere we were all trying to capture.  Two singers from the club played brief sets – both of them excellent - and then Rob and I did two thirty minute sets which Brian was able to capture on the six cameras and bank of technical kit he had ranged around him.  The atmosphere was relaxed and unlike the tensions of a recording studio, the ‘live gig’ feel was conducive to a certain ease of playing which suited us. Despite the cameras, it was possible to create a club ‘vibe’ and our material seemed to go down very well with club members and we had some great feedback on the night.

As I type, we have just begun to see some of the footage of the night coming back from Brian and can confirm that, as he predicted, he has indeed been able to surpass the terrific work he achieved at Tenterden.  Our aim is to review all of the material Brian managed to capture on the night and then decide where best to place it on external sources and this web-site – so please be patient.

It is not our habit through this blog to promote business ventures.  However, though his nascent enterprise gigfilm, we understand that Brian is thinking about developing a small business around filming promotional and other video material for artists and bands.  If you have any such needs, we couldn’t recommend Brian highly enough for what he has done for us.  We wish him every success with his filming and hope to share the fruits of his labours with na-mara followers as soon as we are able.

We would also like to thank the members of The Isle of Sheppey Folk and Blues club for coming out on a bitterly cold night and making us feel so welcome.  We very much hope to return to the club to play more of our material, in due course.

It was certainly a cold night for heading out from St Albans into central Essex for our last gig of 2012. Our friends Jonny Dyer and Vicky Swan had mentioned us to the Great Bardfield Folk Club with respect to doing a showcase and, club organiser, Anna Bass had kindly taken up their advice and invited us along. 

It was a quick turnaround from the dayjob and Rob was still munching his sandwich as we jumped in the car and set off.  The M25 was rush-hour busy and we were worried for a while about getting to the club in time for a sound check.  However, things cleared and we arrived in plenty of time.

The Great Bardfield Folk Club is held in a truly gorgeous building – the High Barn on the edge of the town.  The venue advertises itself as the best small venue in the UK and one can readily understand why.  Booking, as it does, a wide range of different types of acts throughout the year, the venue is also blessed with a great sound system and technical staff who know how to get the best out of it. 

Throughout the evening, we were very well looked after by the club organisers who themselves constitute the band, Two Coats Colder and who opened the evening in style.

The acoustic evenings at Great Bardfield Folk Club proceed by having a round the room session, where people come up to the area in front of the stage or perform from where they are sitting.  This is punctuated by two showcase  sessions making use of the full stage set up.

Given next day travel requirement, members of the other showcase band for the evening, an exciting new band called The Last Drop, took to the stage first.  Check them out – as a four-piece they play ‘gothic folk’ , with grizzly tales of an Hogarthian nature, and they have a bright future ahead of them.  They have excellent stage presence, with costumes to match for some of the band, and they deliver their pacy music with real conviction.  Listen out for their excellent ‘Tyburn Jig’. 

Elsewhere, throughout the evening, the remarkable feature of the club to me, over and above the remarkable venue in which it was being held, was the quality of singing. Floorspot after floorspot performed wonderfully well, sometimes accompanied, sometimes a capella.

We played a set of five songs that seemed to go down very well and it was certainly a joy to play with such a good sound system.  Tuning was not the worry we thought it might be on such a cold evening, and we managed to deliver a good mix of the music we play.

After a return to a last set of floorspots, the club broke for the evening.  Rob and I departed to the sounds of club members warming themselves up before leaving, with a fine rendition of The Boar’s Head Carol.

Even this late in the year, motorway planners can still have a few tricks up their sleeve . It would have been nice to have had an earlier warning of the M11/M25 junction being closed, as we could have planned a completely different route home.  So, in the event, we had to sail past the M25 and work our way home around the lovely North Circular.  Being a bit cold by the time all the guitars and other instruments had finally been unloaded, I felt the need for ......a bowl of porridge and a cuppa.  Now that’s rock and roll! 

Best wishes  for 2013 to all at the Great Bardfield Club and to members of Two Coats Colder and The Last Drop.  We look forward to seeing them on the circuit in the coming months.