Saturday Night with the Lewes Folk Club

I see a sign in a neighbor’s window for the Lewes Folk Club and decide to check it out.  The group meets every Saturday to sing and play traditional music. Tonight they are gathering at the Crown Inn (est. 1610), a hotel that supposedly is haunted. 

I arrive after things are underway, because I turned the wrong way down High Street.  I’d forgotten that even and odd numbers run in opposite directions.

Even numbers on one side of the street:        2-200

Odd numbers on the other:                             201-1

At first I think I am in the wrong place.  “You lookin' fer the music people?” the barman asks.  “Straight through an’ out the back.”  You have to walk through the smoky pub with loud pop music on the jukebox and down a corridor to reach the meeting room.

At the Folk Club, anyone can play or sing  -- it’s like an open mike night but without the mike.   People come up one or two at a time and play fiddle, concertina, or banjo or to sing a tune.  And if the song has a chorus, everyone joins in:

           

Hurrah!  Hurrah!

For the sunny south I sail.

3 cheers for the southern girl

And the boy who wore the grey

                                    And    

                                                            Come along girls

                                                            And sing for joy!

                                                            This is the end of

                                                            the rambling boy!

One man sings an old military ballad, but the last verse mentions Iraq and Afghanistan, and that

The mission in Libya is creeping,

            Blair and Cameron are sleeping

            Love Farewell

(When I ask him later whether he had written it himself, he says quite proudly, “Yes, I’m a Bolshie from way back.”)

At the break, most people go to the pub to grab a pint.  A bunch of tall young guys in drag come in.  “Where’s the hen?” someone yells.  The “hen”?  Another customer explains to me it’s a bachelor party; the “hen” is marrying a real woman next week. Meanwhile, the guys in costume are debating how many liquor shots to buy.

Back to the Community Room for more singing, more playing.  Then out through the pub and into the street.  The “hens” have disappeared.  (Perhaps they decided that buying an entire bottle of whiskey was cheaper than buying 19 shots!)

Instead of the Folk Club, I could have gone to the Mayor’s “Fancy Dress” (aka Costume) ball down the street.  One guest decked out as a cowboy has a shotgun slung over his shoulder.  He tips his hat to me as I walk by.  

[Royal Wedding Blog to Come!]