SUMMER/AUTUMN 2012 No. 99
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cover.pdf 1 03/11/2009 12:03:39 what’s afoot title & logo to be inserted as for previous issues. No. 99 SUMMER/AUTUMN 2012 £1.00 No. 99 SUMMER/AUTUMN 2012 The Magazine of Devon Folk www.devonfolk.co.uk All articles, letters, photos, and diary What’s Afoot No. 99 dates & listings Contents Local Treasures: Paul Wilson & Marilyn Tucker 4 diary entries free Body and Soul 7 Please send to Keep Fit & Healthy The Fun Way 9 Colin Andrews Obituaries 10 Bonny Green, Lucky 7’s Thanks to Peter & Margaret 13 Morchard Bishop, Footnotes 14 Crediton, EX17 6PG Poetic Playford 15 Tel/fax 01363 877216 Devon Folk News 16 [email protected] Devon Folk Committee 18 Contacts: dance, music & song clubs 19 - 23 Copy Dates Diary Dates 25 - 30 1st Feb for 1st April Contacts: display, festivals, bands, callers 33 - 37 1st June for 1st Aug Reviews 38 - 45 1st Oct for 1st Dec D’Urfey and O’Carolan 46 Advertising Finding My Voice Early Years Music project 49 Morris Matters 50 Enquiries & copy to: Dick Little The search for my replacement as editor of What’s Afoot may be Collaton Grange, over. Having twisted quite a few arms over the past few months, to Malborough. no avail, a volunteer (!) has come forward. Sue Hamer-Moss is an Kingsbridge TQ7 3DJ experienced folk dance caller and Morris dancer with Winkleigh Tel/fax 01548 561352 (3rd from left on front cover), Jackstraws & Downs on Tour. She [email protected] was an originl member of Glory of the West. Rates Full page £27 Half £16.50 Sue intends to ease into the role over the next year, and I shall Quarter £10 Eighth* £5 continue - for the time being - to collate the lsitings and diary Lineage* £3 for 15 words dates. The job (unpaid!) is quite an undertaking for one person, (*min. 3 issues) and there is certainly scope for other volunteers to get involved. Please enclose cheque The publication of the 100th edition of What’s Afoot will be payable to “Devon Folk” with celebrated by a ceilidh at Tedburn St Mary Village Hall on all orders and adverts Saturday, 24th November. Details on page 6. Distribution & Subscriptions Colin Andrews Jean Warren 51, Green Park Road, Plymstock, Plymouth, Cover photograph : Winkleigh Morris with Olympic torch bearer PL9 9HU David Follett. 1646 Centre Torrington, Monday 21st May. 01752 401732 Individual copies What’s Afoot is published 3 times a year by Devon Folk. £1.00 + S.A.E. / A5 Please note that the views expressed are not necessarily Subscription (see form) those of the Editor nor of Devon Folk. Devon Folk is £5 per 3 issues) an af liate of the English Folk Dance & Song Society (registered charity number 305999). The Editor & Devon Bulk orders (pre-paid) Folk accept no liability for the content of copy supplied £10 per 10 incl. p&p by advertisers Printed by Hedgerow Print, Crediton. Tel. 01363 777595 3 Next year will be Wren’s 30th Anniversary. Melanie Henrywood visited Paul and Marilyn at their of ce in Okehampton to learn about their unique work in promoting ‘music of the folk’ locally, nationally and internationally. Roots and Shoots After studying music at Dartington College, Paul chose to pursue the folk genre and stayed in Devon. and Mike Bettison. “A recurring theme in our He worked with ‘Staverton Bridge’, collecting work is the idea of a multi-disciplinary celebration songs and putting on concerts with local people. including music; whether it is a play or lantern Marilyn was born and bred in South Zeal, singing procession, always involving people in creating family songs from the aural tradition. Having the art.” graduated with a degree in Social Sciences, she saw the importance of investing locally collected Another thread through their work has been the music back into the community. Paul summarises: Baring-Gould collection. Marilyn had referred to “Way back there were those who were interested the songs when she started singing and in 1989, with in a national identity such as Bishop Percy and Martin Graebe, they created a show called ‘Songs Herder, then came the collectors and popularisers of the West’ to celebrate the 100th Anniversary like Cecil Sharp and Baring-Gould. In the 1950s of publication of the book. Subsequently, while we had the folk revival with Ewan MacColl, recording the show in Killerton library (which Bert Lloyd etc. and now, directly in line, we held Baring-Gould’s personal books), Paul, have developed greater involvement with the Marilyn and Martin were shown three books that community. Wren exists at the junction of music had been shelved for 100 years — the full extent and people; taking music back to the people – the of Baring-Gould’s collection! Together with music of the people, for the people, by the people, the National Trust, Devon County Council, the with the people. Our vision statement is ‘a world Baring-Gould Corporation (Merriol Almond) and where every voice is heard’.” an advisory board with Steve Roud and archivist Melanie Smith, they worked to digitise the entire In 1979 Paul and Marilyn’s rst project was a collection (see Devon Tradition Heritage Project performance-based tour of songs from Exmoor devontradition.org), which is now available on the called ‘From Bratton to Porlock Bay’ using EFDSS Take Six website (library.efdss.org). “We photographs of Cecil Sharp’s singers placed are very proud that everybody’s descendants who on a huge home-made map. Wren’s education sang to Baring-Gould, at the click of a button, can programme originates from 1983, when Paul get hold of the material that their great-grandparents and Marilyn started working for Devon County sang. We have returned it to the public domain, Council in schools, taking a concert followed free of charge for everybody to enjoy.” by a workshop. They were also running a series of folk concerts at The Barn eld Theatre, ‘Folk Off-Shoots in Exeter’, each programme involving a visiting Paul was Chair of an initiative to start an Arts artist supported by local artists and a ‘world music’ Centre in the Exeter area in the early 1980s, element. This is how they met Jim Payne and which eventually led to the creation of The Exeter linked to Newfoundland, which Marilyn describes Phoenix. as “a gold thread, in and out of our work”. In 1984 they created The Sticklepath Bon re Show In 1987 Alistair Anderson toured Devon schools (sticklepath reshow.org.uk) with Taffy Thomas 4 with Paul to promote folk music and returned to the North armed with Wren’s rst Annual Devon and Dorset, shed off Newfoundland for six Report. Some of those ideas were used to develop months and came back. In the Nineteenth Century Folkworks, which eventually led to the Folk people followed their ancestors to Newfoundland Degree course at The Sage. and Canada when the South West lost a lot of its industry to the North, where there were coal elds. Local Projects A fantastic trade of songs went with the emigrants Wren runs three community folk orchestras, and 60% of the people over there can trace their four community folk choirs and one mandolin ancestry back here, so if you want to study West orchestra – pioneering provision in England. Paul Country songs, go to Newfoundland! Because and Marilyn are very proud that they have been their communities were much more isolated, able to create work in Devon for professional they maintained the tradition of making their musicians. Personnel also include a Board of own entertainment a lot longer, so they still have Trustees, volunteers and support staff. versions of songs that were sung here a century or two ago.” Following the publication of the song collection, the Baring-Gould Folk Weekend is an annual event A link with South Africa was made in 2003 through in Okehampton in October (Patron Phil Beer) and, Mervyn Bennun, a founding Trustee of Wren. A since 1999, the Baring-Gould Song School which speci c project developed with funding from a is ‘an open space’ to work with people and their Lottery bid and several exchanges of young people singing. It includes a lecture by Steve Roud who and singers followed, with an emphasis on sharing is an Honorary Patron of Wren, as is Peggy Seeger and respecting; learning each other’s songs and (while Wren ‘prodigies’ include Jim Causley and looking for connections. Sam Lee). Wren’s complex European links involve choirs Marilyn runs The Singers’ Friendly Circle in and singing. Through a visit to a choir festival in Okehampton where people can bring a song to a Hungary they met and built an exchange with the supportive audience for discussion and feedback. group of singers from Sardinia whose liturgy has not been written down for 300 years and is handed National Input down through familial links in their community. Wren has been groundbreaking in its work with Currently Wren are involved with a ‘six nations’ folk music for schools. “In 1911 there was ‘Folk project involving traditional folk song with choirs Songs for Schools’; in the 1950s we had ‘Singing from Italy, Romania, Portugal, Germany and Spain. Together’ and now, since about 2007, ‘Sing “As our own folk tradition isn’t necessarily choral, Up’, where Wren has been involved in the local it is interesting to arrange songs for folk choirs to delivery.” Special Needs song provision has been sing.” Paul has written a four-part arrangement of a Wren speciality since 2006 (nicewarmsocks. ‘The Sweet Nightingale’ for each choir to perform org) and now in 2012, a complete on-line resource together in Okehampton in June 2013.