As I said in the last blog, life seems very busy at the moment and before we know it we will be Into February and beyond. In the meantime, there are lots of good things coming up, (and that’s leaving aside the Six Nations rugby!) in the form of several concerts in our locality, starting with another reminder about Royston Live on Friday 26th January featuring The Bounty Hounds and with the new management team of Bryan Causton, Penni Maclaren-Walker, Guido Rincón & Jeremy Harmer providing support.
You will have to be quick to catch the Burns Night celebration at the Four Rivers Folk Club in Hertford tonight but they also have a Ronnie Lane Night going on tomorrow Friday 26th January and now all their club nights can be found as an entry in the Unicorn Diary which is one of The Listings on the main Unicorn Folk website. The same is also now true of the Acoustic Club Bishop’s Stortford following the publication of its programme concerts, mostly at the new venue the South Mill Arts Centre. Their next concert night is a ‘6 Acts 4 Songs’ evening on Thursday 1st February.
Next Wednesday 31st January Baldock Folk Club features Elizabeth & Jameson with support from Adam Cooney and the following Wednesday 7th February there is another great night folk lined up for the audience at St Andrew’s Church in Hertford featuring the Sharon Shannon Trio details of which can be found on the main Unicorn Folk website where it is a featured concert, but you’ll need to hurry as it is almost sold out! If that’s the case, then perhaps you should try for the night before that, Tuesday 6th February, when Fairport Convention open their Wintour 2024 at the Stables, Milton Keynes. You can read a review of their Harpenden concert from Wintour 2023 on the Unicorn Folk website HERE.
I was saddened to see the news that Standon Morris are officially calling it a day and winding down. This decision was reached unanimously at their most recent AGM in September of last year following many years of struggle to recruit new dancers from the local area, despite repeated campaigns. They are now in the process of creating a consolidated archive which will hold photos, videos, newspaper cuttings and other bits and pieces from over the years. Select media from their archive will be posted to their Facebook page and they warmly welcome any media, footage, information, anecdotes or tales of the side that former members or followers are happy to share.
Amongst the responses to the post by Standon Morris was one by Trevor Jenkins who posted a copy of the front page of ‘The Times’ from Monday 27th June 1977. This showed Standon Morris dancing in the Winster Processional as part of the 1977 Morris Ring meeting in Thaxted over the weekend just ended. I was reminded on seeing the photo that I was at that Ring Meeting, my first, as a dancer with Bath City Morris. We were led by Tubby Reynolds & Roy Dommett and missed out on the front page of The Times by only about 50 yards! Sadly, the Bath City Morris ‘university’ side has also been defunct for many years. We used to have an archive on a website somewhere and if anyone who is reading this has any connections with Bath City Morris as was, or knows someone who does, I would be interested in putting up another commemorative website for that side. Please get in touch using info@unicornfolk.uk.
Whilst genuinely saddened at the demise of any group keeping alive the old dance traditions, all the above is also an excuse to mention again the Dance Diary in The Listings on the main Unicorn Folk website which provides a FREE listing of events for all EFDSS or Morris sides to allow them to publicise their activities. This is provided simply to do what little Unicorn Folk can to keep these old traditions going. Do take advantage if you can and send your details to info@unicornfolk.uk ideally using the either Word or Excel forms (still labelled 2023 but fine to use) which makes it a lot easier to collate than just plain text in an email.
Finally, if you enjoy listening to folk music, try ‘Filby’s Folk’ at 6pm on Sunday evenings on Royston Radio with a repeat at 1pm Tuesdays. The beauty of radio is that you can listen and do other things, such as cook, at the same time! The show features a wide range of folk music including traditional, acoustic, Celtic, European, Breton, Indie and folk rock (or ‘Frock’ as Fairport apparently now refer to it!) the latter being a particular favourite of mine. Do give it a listen and if you like it spread the word please. Thank you!
Unicorn Folk News 