SINGING THE SOUTH DOWNS WAY: AFFECT IN PERFORMANCE AND PRACTICE Elizabeth Bennett A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Drama, Royal Holloway, University of London September 2017 DECLARATION I, Elizabeth Bennett, confirm that this thesis, Singing the South Downs Way: Affect in Performance and Practice, is all my own work. ii ABSTRACT This thesis explores folk singing from the perspective of performance studies. It investigates folk singing as an affective practice, learned from the archive and performed in context on a walk along the South Downs Way in May 2015. The thesis takes the ‘affective turn’ in performance studies and cultural geography as a conceptual starting point, and analyses how preparing for performance takes care of folk song as archival remains (Roms 2013), the dynamic between folk song, autobiography, and walks (Mock 2009), and how the relationship between footpaths and folk songs may be conceived through the notion of ‘embodied acts of landscaping’ (Lorimer 2005). Through reflection on the practices of performing songs from the archive that were collected in Sussex, and meeting other folk singers to learn songs that they associated with the Sussex landscape, this thesis considers how knowledge is produced ‘with others, in movement, and through engagement with a material, sensory and social environment’ (Pink 2009). Authoethnography is used as a methodological approach to explore the affective and emotional aspects of songs that may be passed in the oral tradition from person to person, and the experience of learning songs from a family repertoire. Additionally, autoethnography is used in order to count the body as an instrument of research, and investigate its relationship to other bodies (Longhurst et al 2008). Further, the challenges of investigating affect, embodiment and ‘ways of moving, feeling, or performing in the past’, in relation to biography and the archive, are explored through a ‘small story’ of the work of Sussex-based folk song collector Dorothy Marshall (Lorimer 2003). Analysing folk songs in the affective context of the archive and the landscape, this thesis engages with and contributes to scholarship on embodied intangible cultural heritage and ideas of affect, emotion, and feeling in contemporary performance theory; asking not what folk songs mean, but what folk songs do? iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Firstly, I would like to formally thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council for granting me a PhD studentship to undertake this research. Heartfelt gratitude to my exceptional supervisor Helen Nicholson for her steadfast patience, support, enthusiasm, and guidance. It has been a privilege to have such considered attention from an extraordinary scholar. Many thanks are also due to my care-full advisor Emma Brodzinski, and the whole Drama, Theatre, and Dance Department at Royal Holloway for providing me with such an exciting and welcoming environment to study in. To everyone who walked and sang with me during this project, and the last four years, thank you for making this research possible and truly collaborative, and providing companionship on the path. Dinah Goss, thank you for playing the piano so patiently and bringing the tunes to life. To the scholars who gave their time and expertise on the TECHNE Arena writing programme. In particular Jessica Moriarty and Kristen Kreider, for blazing the trail and inspired me to write this thesis in the way that I needed to – thank you. To James Dixon, Lorna Richardson, and the whole PA2015 team, thank you for inviting me to take part in your project and giving my ideas a forum. Steve Roud for so kindly letting me see an early draft of his phenomenally helpful book Folk Song in England. I was also lucky enough to be invited several times to present and develop papers on my research by the Literary and Visual Landscapes team at Bristol University – particular thanks to Emily Derbyshire and Andrew Giles. To Robert MacFarlane, for sending me an encouraging email when it was much needed, and for reminding me of my love for the old ways and those who watch, walk, and keep them. Thank you to fellow RHUL PhD students Cara Grey and Emma Miles for their unswerving comradeship, intellectual stimulation, and friendship. To my consultant Jenny Lo, for believing in my pain and taking care of it. And finally, to my family, who are in every word of this, and the place where all my journeys begin and end – thank you so very much. iv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1.Letter from Grandma ..................... 50 2.Barbara Ellen ............................... 51 3.Harting to Cocking [Map]................ 78 4.First Steps at Harting Down ............. 83 5.The Milkmaid .............................. 83 6.Group Reach Beacon Hill ................ 85 7.Beacon Hill School ........................ 85 8.A Farmer there lived in the North Country …………………………………. 86 9. Lady Maisry ……………………… 91 10. Barbara Ellen in Dorothy Marshall’s notebook ………………………………………95 11.Liz and Dawn – Barbara Ellen ......... 97 12.View from Bepton Down .............. 97 13.The Path that Leads to Cocking ...... 100 14.The Unquiet Grave ……………….102 15.Gerald, Nick, Alison and Catherine. Kampala, Uganda 1964 ……………………………………...106 16.St Catherine of Sienna Church Yard, Cocking …………………………………. 108 17. Green Bushes…………………….110 18. Cocking to Amberley [Map] ......... 114 19. Foxes-Brewings at Didling Church . 115 20.Graffam Woods ......................... 116 21.Herring-Salesman, Heyshott .......... 123 v 22.Members of the Women's Land Army on parade on the Brighton seafront ............................................. 128 23.Forestry Corps in Petworth, Sussex . 128 24.The Cruel Father and Affectionate Lovers ……………………………………..135 25.Walking to Houghton .................. 136 26.Sussex Beer .............................. 136 27.Lucy Broadwood at Home with James Campbell MacInnes…………………………140 28.Folk song’s unsung heroine: Lucy Broadwood in 1901……………………………..140 29.Amberley to Upper Beeding [Map] .. 141 30.The Silvery Tide ........................ 150 31.The Silver Tide .......................... 151 32.The Lines of Place ...................... 158 33.Young Jocky………………………159 34.A Braid of Line .......................... 161 35.Walking Towards Chanctonbury .... 166 36.Chanctonbury ........................... 166 37.Upper Beeding to Rodmell [Map] ... 167 38.New Year’s Day ......................... 176 39.On Shoreham Beach .................... 176 40.Michael Blann ........................... 179 41.Hare Hunting …………………….187 42.Central Club, Peacehaven ............. 194 43.Rodmell to Alfriston [Map] ........... 195 44.Alfriston to Eastbourne [Map] ........ 199 45.St Peter’s Church, Rodmell ........... 199 vi 46. How Cold, How Cold the Wind do Blow ………………………………….200 47. Cold Blows the Wind …………………….……………200 48.Dancing for Joy…………………...202 49. Young Collins……………………204 50.Firle Beacon .............................. 209 51.Firle Beacon .............................. 209 52.Morning has Broken: St Andrew’s Church, Alfriston ............................................ 217 53.View back to Firle Beacon from Windover Hill …………………………………… 217 54.Peggy Angus and Dick Freeman outside Furlongs, Glynde …………………………………….. 222 55. Glynde Place Church……………..223 56. A-Maying ……………………….225 57.Mary Martin Page ....................... 226 58.Eleanor Farjeon, aged 30, in Norfolk ................................ 226 59.Ha’naker Mill ............................ 239 60.Chithurst Tipteers ...................... 242 61.Dorothy’s Song Notebook ............ 242 62.I Wish You Could See the Trees ..... 245 63.Chithurst House......................... 249 64.Dorothy Marshall’s Grave ............. 251 65.Isn’t My Left-Hand Writing Getting Quite Expert …………………………………….. 262 vii 66.Dashing away with the Smoothing Iron ……………………………………...265 67.South Downs Way, Signpost ......... 272 TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration of Authorship ............................................................................... ii Abstract ..................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements ....................................................................................... iv List of Illustrations ................................................................................... v- viii Table of Contents ..................................................................................... viii-x Chapter 1: Folk Songs: Affective Work in the Field Through Bushes and Through Briars: Learning Songs and Walking on the Downs ...................... 1 Affect Theory: What songs do ............................................................................... 4 Navigation of the Thesis ................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2: Methodological Experiments: Auto/Sensory/Ethnography Possible Beginnings ......................................................................................... 20 Autoethnography as a Methodology ....................................................................... 23 Interviews and Autoethnograpy ............................................................................ 25 Autobiographical Performative Walks ..................................................................... 29 Sensory Ethnography as a Methodology ................................................................... 35 Emplaced Ethnography ..................................................................................... 37 Imagining-in-practice: