Janice Lane wrote:
>
> Thanks, Philip, for a fantastic weekend. The children in the Borders are
> very lucky to have such caring adults providing such a variety of events. No
> wonder they are so talented.
>
We moved the Kelso session on Friday night to Coldstream, arrived at
7.30pm (two hours earlier than our usual!) and did spend five hours
doing songs, a little fiddle as well - but only Guy Norris and Sandy
Watson with family bothered to drop in. That was good, but where were
the 15 or 20 we were briefed to be ready for? We actually had an
audience of half a dozen British Legion regulars, and true to brief, we
got them singing - one chap had a fantastic memory for (obscure) songs
from before the war. We actually had a very good session, probably one
of the best in terms of keeping it together, but no-one came along (Guy
and Sandy aren't regulars at the Kelso session but do occasionally
appear, or did when it was in a more family-friendly pub - which the Red
Lion is not).
>From what our scouts reported, instead of sessions being active in half
a dozen different Coldstream pubs on the first night, everyone ended up
jamming the White Swan to the point of bursting. This seems to be a
fiddle thing; if there's one good fiddler, no-one can bear to miss THAT
session so everyone sticks together. It happened in Kelso in October,
too, with almost 100 (so the pub claimed) fiddlers trying to occupy the
Cobbles. This was a lie. At least one of them had a cello and some were
not fiddlers at all but were waving flutes and things; however, the pub
was convinced they were all fiddlers.
But it does look as if instead of getting music at many venues,
Coldstream got some oversubscribed music in one venue on Friday night,
while we 'singers' occupied an empty British Legion hall capable of
holding all of those and more - and even boasting an unused dance floor.
Fortunately we had our own fiddler in the form of Kerry, and it was her
last session locally since she emigrates to Ellesmere Port later this
week.
On Sunday night, I thought I'd pop out and see if there were any
sessions. I walked the circuit of the Coldstream pubs from 10.00 to
10.30 but no music anywhere; not a single session. I did not check the
Legion, though... maybe I should have...
David
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