Of Another Ending Or Just An Hiatus?

For many years it has been my great privilege and pleasure to organise a monthly session in Downham Market, Norfolk, for creators of original music and poetry. I inherited a "folk and acoustic music night" when the previous organiser needed to move on to other things. I'm trying to remember how long ago that was and I'm guessing around ten years ago, maybe more. 

These evenings started off at a café and shop specialising in selling and cooking locally produced food and beverages in Downham Market High Street called The Hop And Hog. It also had a licence for selling alcohol. The songwriter, musician and (presently four times published) author, Nico Dobben, knew the owner of the café and, along with musician and agit merchant John Preston, started the music and spoken word evenings. It was a place where one could order a home-cooked meal and enjoy not just the produce of local gardeners and smallholders, but also local musicians.

Sadly the Hop And Hog went out of business and we lost that very nice venue. If we wanted to carry on a new space for music was required. Rescue came when the new manager of Denver Windmill offered us a room at the mill. Although out of town the room was a good size albeit not easily accessible. One needed to be able to climb steep stairs inside and outside the building and dodge round the millstones to reach a room more usually used as a workshop space for teaching bread-making. It was during our time at Denver Mill that I took over the project. Seeing the number of very fine poets and songwriters among our regulars I felt that there was an opportunity to make a feature of original creations. Thus was Downham Songwriters & Poets created. People who wanted to perform covers or traditional songs had increasing opportunities among a growing number of open mic nights in the region. Again, sadly, there was trouble at t'mill and it too went out of business; we lost another venue. Was a pattern developing here? The Mill has since become home to another open mic session every month and also hosts regular festivals, the next one of which will be in one week's time.

In need of a new place for Songwriters & Poets I contacted the landlady of a pub back in Downham. I felt our numbers may improve if we were able to find a venue back in the town itself. For a few years we shared the bar at The Cock with locals who just wanted a quiet drink and, being a Friday night, members of the Norfolk Symphony Orchestra after rehearsals. The orchestra players disappeared after a while of tolerating us invading their social space and it was an ongoing issue to encourage a listening audience when people just really wanted to go to their local boozer for a night out. The number of people although good at first became a shrinking one and that made more apparent a tension between the political views of the regulars and the bunch of left-leaning dissidents who invaded their space. I found this quite an interesting situation as it gave me an opportunity to listen to and discuss with people completely outside my own echo-chamber. However, the differences came to a head in June 2016 on the day after the referendum to leave the European Union. Most of us were reeling from the way the vote had gone. As we gathered before the session began we moved chairs and tables into position in silence. Many of us were close to tears. The remain lobby had lost the vote overwhelmingly in our portion of the Fens. Our evening eventually got underway and was in something approaching full-swing when the vicar came in and delivered a sermon castigating "you lefty layabouts" who had never done a day of "real work" in our lives. He headed off any suspicion that a vicar might be accused of the same thing when he declaimed he had been a steel-worker in his pre-vicaring life, which he clearly felt qualified him for delivering his lecture. I had never spoken to him before and he knew nothing about me and, I suspect, nothing about most of the rest of our group. There was even less chance of any of us setting foot in his church after that experience. It was completely uncalled for and an arrogant imposition to interrupt our event. If ever there was a case of a man of god misreading a room this was it. Of course, the evening fell apart at that point and after that night we never went back.

Obviously we required yet another venue. There were other pubs in the town so we were not short of places to try. I took advice from those of our number who lived in Downham and one person sounded out the owner of The Crown. The Crown had a history as far as folk music was concerned. It had been a home of the old Downham Market Folk Club in the 1970s and possibly the 1960s and 1980s for all I know. My band, The News of the Victory, had played in the upstairs function room a couple of times in the 1990s, so it felt that moving to The Crown was a bit like a homecoming. They also had a number of function rooms, even after the upstairs hall had been converted to guest accommodation rooms. We were shown to The Stables that were occasionally used as a dining and function room and which had seen several changes of use since its venerable coaching inn days. We were told we could arrange it how we liked for our evenings. It was a completely separate space from the rest of the pub so there would be no need to disturb the regulars who weren't interested in the music and poetry. It was a good venue, with very easy access via our own entrance. There was no rent to pay with the pub benefitting from more bar sales and with even an option of food. For a time it looked like a good long-term solution. Sadly, once again events overtook us. The pub owner also owned The Jenyns Arms, a well established pub/restaurant at Denver Sluice. The Jenyns Arms was a popular, foodie restaurant. At some point the cellar was flooded and a lot of furniture was in danger of ruin. The Stables at The Crown was the only option for storage, so we lost that room. However, we were offered another room there. The Fox Dining Room was more compact and much closer to the bar. It was the space which felt most like the folk clubs I had known from my teenage years of going to folk clubs, although I don't recall another with a grandfather clock. The downside was that it was only accessible by a flight of five stairs, which were sadly beyond the ability of some of our regulars to manage. Then came covid and for us, as well as for everyone else, everything had to shut down.

Once we could eventually think of meeting again, we needed a space. A priority was for accessibility. One of our regulars suggested we try Discover Downham. It was the town's heritage centre, not quite a museum, though with plenty of artefacts on display, that had been converted from the old fire station. It was a nice enough room but lacking any of the atmosphere of any of our previous venues, there was no bar and we had to pay for room hire for the first time. There were also strict getting in and getting out limitations marked by the appearance of caretakers who jangled metaphorical keys. It did have a car park and our entrance was from the car park so in that sense it was convenient, but I never did get used to a complete lack of atmosphere apart from that with which our wonderful contributors - both performers and audience - endowed it. It definitely put the "function" into "function room". I acknowledge that the committee had attempted to add atmosphere via the display of artefacts and notices about the history of the town, but it certainly was not like any of our previous rooms with its fierce fluorescent lighting and noisy heating fans. I think the lack of a bar and having to pay for a multi-purpose space made creating an atmosphere more challenging. It was more like going to a parish meeting.

Like anything though else we got used to it and it has been a joy to be involved with some wonderful evenings of song and poetry there. We also attracted a small and loyal audience to support the performers. We had some people turn up speculatively and some grew into contributors to the evening's entertainment.

Now, though, it is time for me to hand it on to someone else. I don't know what Songwriters & Poets will become, though I suspect it will go from strength to strength. Many thanks to everyone who has turned up to support the evenings during my tenure. I have laughed, wept, shared my songs and poems and I have cajoled, counselled and encouraged new, aspiring  and returning performers. These last few years have provided a richness of local creativity that I shall treasure. It also made me feel part of a town I have always felt had something special, even when I have never lived there, except for times when I moored my boat nearby. I shall no longer be able to maintain that feeling, though for these years past I felt part of the extraordinary scene that Downham Market has encouraged. Maybe if I ever have to move on to land there are plenty of worse places to end up.

Of Dancing & Inheritance

I love this photograph, though my prosopagnosia strips away some of the pleasure. My son assures me this really is my parents, even if I can't see it! What joy there is in dancing! My mum and dad loved to dance and this photograph expresses that joy perfectly. I think she radiates joy in this image. A love of dancing runs in the family. Had she lived, my beautiful mother would have been a hundred years old this year. 

Sadly she didn’t live to see the next three generations enjoy dancing - it is, however, a wonderful inheritance from two lovely people. My father went to tea dances twice weekly until a few weeks before he died. In the long-ago days before covid, the innoculations and my two strokes here is that legacy, three generations of my family dancing to my band, The News of the Victory playing my composition, "The Divine Miss M". For me, the very worst thing about my degree of recovery from the strokes is that I no longer have the confidence to dance beyond a bit of shuffling about.

Of course, the legacy carries on and the ripples spread far beyond family. My mother would have been so happy to know that her granddaughter set up and leads this institution while her great-granddaughter has graduated from a college in the USA having completed a course in musical theatre.

Of The First Busk Of The Spring

It has been a long, cold, windy, watery winter. It was another sunny day today and it would have been such a waste to stay home on the boat when I could be out playing music in the street. Recent weekends have been tempting and then the weather made a choice to stay in the warmth and shelter of the boat even more tempting. There is also the competition with the karaoke crews in town who start off at about 8am and keep going until the market closes at 3pm and the streets clear of people. Yesterday there were no other people singing through cranked up p.a. systems and I was able to set up and enjoy myself for a couple of hours. People passing were very generous, so I guess some of them enjoyed my music as well. The man who dropped a fiver in the hat told me he plays guitar too (a Gibson Hummingbird apparently). It feels good to be getting back out there and doing my Marshlander thing.

I am clearly out of practice. Today is the first time I've sung in the street this year, but songs I've been singing in the boat to try and get my fingers, feet and voice moving deserted me at diverse moments. It wasn't a concert, it was street music and another instrumental verse as folk were ambling or dashing by made few odds to them. It is strange how the memory decides not to cooperate in the middle of a song as I try in vain to recall lyrics. I could understand if  these lapses happened in the same part of the song each time, but it's nothing like that. Holes can appear anywhere in the song where the lyrics should be and that is always frustrating. However, I do know that as I get out and play more regularly again, the words will reappear and reassert themselves.

At least busking still brings me joy!

Of Tales On Two Wheels

I love getting out on the bicycle. I cycle up to the lock most days in the boating season and into the village two or three times a week for fresh produce from a farm gate. Sometimes I cycle up to another village if a letter needs posting. My bike folds neatly into my boat and is a joy to ride. Sadly I feel the effort required to cycle at the moment, even here in the flat Fens, but there is nothing like a ride in beautiful fenland as the earth bursts into life with the energy of a new spring. I haven't had to light the stove for two or three weeks now and I don't have to wear a hat to bed at night and I rarely need to connect to a shoreline for electricity. Yes, I love this time of the year after a dreary and grey winter.

Today I needed to replenish fresh fruit and veg supplies. I bought potatoes (new and old), carrots, calabrese, sprouting broccoli and apples. I suspect some of these may not have been grown on the farm ... I was tempted by the pointy cabbage, but decided to give it a miss this time. On the way back I took a few photos. The only trick now is to work out how to import them into this blog. Such things used to be a lot more simple, but my phone no longer seems to speak to my laptop the way it used to. The computer is about fourteen years old and I can only run it when the sun is shining because the laptop battery no longer holds a charge for more than a couple of minutes. The operating system has upgraded as much as it is ever going to, so my work around is to send e-mails to myself.

Here are some beautiful views by the lock. The empty lock-keeper's cottage was bought a couple of months ago by friends and it is a joy to see how they are bringing it back to life.

My electronics may be temperamental, the boat and the van may decide not to cooperate every so often, a guitar string occasionally snaps or a harp reed clogs up, but somehow the bicycle never lets me down.  

Of Ways To Fill A Moment And Exercise the Brain

Since my second stroke, four years ago, I have found myself having to cut down on the amount of stuff I do. I wouldn't admit to lethargy exactly, but I don't have the energy or the confidence to undertake multiple music and dance projects and I have decided to prioritise. The covid pandemic and two strokes saw me stop working almost altogether with other people. I didn't feel it fair to risk another bout of illness that would affect the livelihoods of fellow musicians and disappoint anyone who had booked me/us for their event. I guess other musicians deal with the increasing risks of an aging body in different ways. I have nothing but the greatest respect for some of my favourite performers who are continuing to find the energy to perform well into their seventies or eighties. I find myself being more wary. I'd like to be braver, but at the moment I'm not. It is only in recent weeks that I have been able to walk without the wobble and the shuffle that the last stroke bequeathed me. I didn't think the old man's gait would disappear, but for the most part it has and for that I am grateful. Now there are other issues and lugging the equipment, specially my drums, from the boat up the bank to my van is a bit of a struggle. I use the struggle as an excuse for not braving cooler, wetter and windier weather to get out and busk. I know that if I just get on and do it I will feel all the better for it. I am awaiting some medical tests and perhaps a positive outcome will restore some of the confidence I seem to have lost. In the meantime, I wonder what I do that is of any use to anyone?

I like to help out at the lock. If a hire boat comes by I grab my bicycle and cycle up to the lock to see if the hirer is confident enough to get through. For many people it is the first lock they have experienced and that experience can be stressful if they feel the pressure to try and remember what they were told while they were still in the marina before being let loose on the open river. They have mostly had just a few minutes of instruction while they were champing at the bit to get on with the day's hire. While there I share a few tips on how manage some of the manoeuvres that I think could be useful as they complete the journey. I'm aware of being an interfering old geezer, but most people seem to be grateful for the help and by the time I get back I will have managed a two-mile bicycle trip. A couple of times a week I cycle into the nearest village to buy fresh veg from a farm gate stall. I buy what's available and in season and that is a seven or eight-mile round trip. Yesterday I think I cycled about fifteen miles and I consider that a reasonable achievement.

When I was recovering from the second stroke I was given visual, memory and logical puzzles to check whether I'd suffered any intellectual impairment. I have found some games requiring similar strategies so I like to start my day with these and imagine that I'm actually keeping the brain working. It is incredibly frustrating that I forget everyday words and proper nouns in conversation as I have yet another "senior moment", but the word or name I've lost usually surfaces eventually, unfortunately that often only happens several hours later when the word is no longer required, but at least it usually comes back!

I have spent the best part of twenty-five years struggling with the French language and spending a small fortune on books and courses that rarely seem to help. I "studied" French for five years in school (actually I spent quite a lot of that time standing in the corridor after being sent out of the class by the teacher) and even with that as a foundation I have always struggled when in France. My partner, P., fluent in several languages, says I know more French than I think I do, but I still can't keep up with conversation and frequently zone out with the sheer effort of trying to keep up with any social interaction. I added a number of apps to my phone over the years and again, most of them have fallen by the wayside. However I do use a couple nearly every day. I have been using Duolingo for 658 consecutive days. It's not perfect, but I have kept going with it, which amazes me. I also tried Jumpspeak for a few days and decided to subscribe. There are glitches, but it is improving with most of the updates. Although I am still only operating at a basic level on Jumpspeak it does offer me the chance to speak, listen to and try out more conversational idioms than the slightly more traditional Duolingo. I assume some of the aspects of French in Duolingo will eventually include more of the everyday language I hear when I go to France. I began at the beginning rather than try to second guess the standard I had achieved. Duolingo does match to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and I think I am currently learning at A2 level. It may not be perfect, but at least I am doing some speaking, writing and listening every day and I really hope that each time I go to France I am a little more proficient than the previous time. I hope that eventually my French family will see that they don't feel so frustrated with me for making such little progress with learning the language. 

I try to go to Venice every couple of years. I have been six times so far and even had two lessons in rowing Venetian style. It is incredibly difficult and requires balance which is something I haven't really had in abundance since the stroke. I hope I am strong enough for a third rowing lesson next time I go which will possibly be next February. A few months ago I realised that rather than have no idea about the Italian language I already had access to a tool which will give me a grounding in the language when I next go to Venice. I added Italian to my subscribed language tuition on Duolingo. From nothing I can now understand and speak a few words and phrases and am currently working towards A1 CEFR proficiency. I tried some Italian on the barman in the pizza restaurant near Storey's Field on Sunday before I went to see Gigspanner. Charmer that he was he asked if I were Italiano. He said that my pronunciation was good! Che uomo affascinante!

From starting as a complete beginner in Italian I may have caught a language bug. I have a Polish acquaintance who I realised early on in our written exchanges that he was probably using a translation app in his messages to me, since mostly they are written in good English which doesn't seem to be matched by his spoken English. I found a translation app on my phone which I started to use when I was chatting with him online. He was really surprised, and seemed very pleased that I was interested enough to take the trouble. Again it occurred to me that I had no idea about how the Polish language is constructed so I added Polish to my daily diet of language learning. There is a massive amount I am hoping will soon be explained because I don't get the logic of most of the constructions. I have sought out charts of verb conjugations online to try and see how it works. It is also one of the languages I don't think P. knows much about, so I am fairly certain he will be interested when we are finally able to spend some time together again. I think I shall need my friend to show me how to write some of the unfamiliar characters by hand (e.g. ł, and ę along with others I can't find on this keyboard without downloading another language overlay!) and I'll just have to try and get to grips with new accents on letters, pronunciation and noun endings. I'm still trying to work out whether Polish nouns have declensions ... that's probably very ignorant of me, but again, I have yet to grasp why words change their suffixes or just their final letter. I can tell you that "the duck is eating bread" though ... kaczka je chleb!

When I was a teenager I had some sort of romantic interest in Celtic mythology and aspired to learn Cornish after seeing Brenda Wootton and John The Fish in concert a few times and, of course of hearing Brenda's beautiful singing. All I could find was a phrase book aimed at the casual tourist and I learned very little about the language. However, on a visit to Wales I was thrilled to find the Welsh language still being spoken by regular people and that was as close as I could manage at the time. I bought myself a Teach Yourself Welsh book, the yellow and black one, but made no progress at all, because I had no idea whatsoever about pronunciation, so after making a few attempts to learn anything at all I gave up. I think I still have that book in storage and I am going to have to seek it out because I added a fourth language to my daily diet of language study - Welsh. Yes, it means learning how to make some new sounds not used in any of the other languages, although I suppose a couple of years of German at school has helped with some of the sounds required for both Polish and Welsh. Remembering that many letters don't sound like English letters and that some diphthongs are completely different and don't sound anything I could have guessed in my most vivid imagination, it actually feels rather exciting.

I may not be making as much music as I probably ought, but my days are full enough when I am between boat trips. I have a vague idea for coming up with a song about my language learning journey, but I don't know what it will be or how it will work yet. Don't hold your breath, but it could happen. Now I have spent the day writing this so I have a few short language lessons to complete to make it to day 658.

Of Busking Friends

You wait for one footdrummer to arrive and three turn up in the same place! I had to give my phone to someone to photograph three Farmer Footdrum players on the same patch of grass at Freaks In A Field 2025. All three of us have a lot of busking and performing experience to share even if we are often in different countries to do what we do best. From left to right in the photo Marshlander, Ruben Reeves and Cam Cole. 

Of course you know more than enough about Marshlander ... Ruben is from Australia and Cam is from everywhere including the second series of the television series, Ted Lasso. Both Ruben and Cam have a lot of their work on YouTube. For three musicians who use the same type of instrument we all have different syles and ways of playing. Perhaps our ways of working with the footdrums are almost as different as the styles of music we play.

And here I am with my friend, August Radio Project. We met up when he played the musical sections of the More Wonders Of Our Universe science show in Boston in 2025. I should learn to smile more. After all I was very happy to meet him in the flesh at last and he is very, very good at smiling!

Of The Joys Of A Septuagenarian Fanboy

It's surely a given that I've always loved music. As a child I heard it on the radio and on the collection of fragile Bakelite 78rpm records owned by my parents. If you dig deep enough through my early memories you will discover that rather than risk their precious records being broken by a clumsy, but enthusiastic three year-old who simply wanted to hear music and dance, they would teach me to use the family's wind-up gramophone. Apparently as a two-year old I could pick out any song from the collection of records anyway. Adult members of the family often tried to catch me out, but it seems they never could. No one knew how I managed to identify individual songs on the A or B side of a stack of discs and I certainly couldn't tell you now. These days I can barely remember what's on the latest cd I have bought. I suppose I should really say something about the importance of dance in my family. That will have to be for another post.

Live music was a treat reserved for an end of the pier variety show during an occasional day out, a London park bandstand encounter or an even rarer family holiday. It was under the last of these circumstances that the first live music performance I can recall is a set by the Buddy Rich Big Band, though, of course, I had no idea of the significance of the band leader. When The Monkees became an irresistible phenomenon I was completely caught up in it and begged my parents to take me to their first London performance at The Empire Pool in Wembley. A year later my tastes had expanded and my parents took us en famille to the Babylonian Mouthpiece Show at the Royal Festival Hall featuring Tyrannosaurus Rex, Roy Harper, David Bowie and Steffan Grossman. After that I went to as many gigs and concerts as I could. I was indeed fortunate that I lived close enough to several excellent venues and the Hyde Park free concerts were just a train and tube trip away.

Last night I enjoyed the Gigspanner Big Band for the umpteenth time. 

Gigspanner Big Band at The Apex, Bury St Edmunds a while ago stolen from the band's website - I'm in the audience but obscured.

Gigspanner Big Band at The Apex, Bury St Edmunds a while ago stolen from the band's website

Most members of the band have become, at the very least, acquaintances and I would venture so far as to say that one has become a friend. I cannot praise highly enough the joy that the skill and constant invention and enthusiasm of the six experts in their metier brings me each time I see them. The set list may look the same or similar, but no night has ever been truly like another. Last night was no exception and I felt they were even stronger than the last time I saw them. As people they are all thoroughly lovely and I do so enjoy spending time in the company of the band members. Despite being very short of savings after the recent boat troubles I bought a weekend ticket for this year's Ely Folk Festival this morning mainly because they are playing. Of course, Ely Folk Festival is as big as I ever like to go these days in terms of the number of people in attendance and it is spread out over a site large enough to offer me some breathing space. Last year a committee member who had seen me on the Kingfisher Stage a couple of years previously asked me if I had got my ticket yet. When I declared I probably would not be coming he said to let him know if I wanted a ticket. I had planned to go to Strumpshaw Tree Fair last year, having never been before, and they clashed. In the end Ely won and I am really pleased it did. I had a great time and I wanted to "pay" for my ticket by playing some guérilla sets around the site, which I did, including playing for two or three hours by the entrance to the field before any of the official programme started up. The stewards were very happy and very complimentary. Another memorable encounter was an impromptu duo with my friend Fara, improvising around Lean On The Tiller for our mutual friend, Nick Penny. I'd like to do the same again this year despite having now purchased a ticket through the official source. 

I also managed to get back to the It's Not The End Of The World Festival, Freaks In A Field and Banterfest. They are all very different styles of festival, but all are deliciously bijoux and I feel more joy when I meet up again with friends from previous events. Not the End and Freaks are also very affordable ... The Sanger Stage is also my favourite stage to play and Dave Sanger took it to both events. At Not the End Of The World I played two sets on that stage, opening and closing the Friday evening. The Sanger Stage is a traditional showman's stage drawn by horses and is certainly a thing of beauty.

Marshlander on the Sanger Stage at It's Not The End Of The World 2025

Ticket prices are an important consideration for most people. Apart from the fact that I don't like big festivals or big concerts I can't afford them anyway. I'd much rather see, say, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown in a club setting such as Club 85 in Hitchin, Esquires in Bedford or The Lexington in Islington. Even at my age it is a joy to discover music that excites me. Music I can say I have found recently that really excites me includes the work of Ren, The Gulls, The Big Push and other Brighton area buskers including August Radio Project. I may have mentioned previously my love of the Norwich-based project, The Neutrinos and Klanghaus. I try to see them as often as I can. Recently I came across a flurry of activity concerning the Quebecois duo, Angine de Poitrine and I would certainly like to see them perform their magic in a live show. Three dates on the upcoming tour were advertised as being in the UK at less than £20 each and all were sold out. They will be returning to the U.K. later in the year, but the ticket prices have doubled already. Of course, live performance is just about the only way bands have access to people who will buy the merchandise that keeps them touring, but I have a price above which I cannot afford to go. Tickets become available for some new events by Sparks later this week. They are, of course, much bigger and more popular than they have been since the mid-1970s. I'm trying to work out if I can afford to see them this year. I suppose the question is, now the tickets are so much more expensive, can I go without going to see them for the sixty-first time?