Prizes seem to have an uncanny knack of avoiding me, so it was such a delight to learn that our application to the Co-operative Bank for the Village Folk Club award had been successful.
Our club began in Titchfield; a small, very ancient village near Southampton. Like so many clubs in the 60s and 70s it enjoyed a popular existence in the upstairs room at the Coach and Horses (a room formerly used in the 1800s as a music hall and theatre venue).
We never had a more successful night than when astute organiser, Nigel Knight, booked Fiddler’s Dram on the very December night in1979 that ‘Day Trip to Bangor’ rose to top the music charts. There was a queue outside the pub door and the room was filled to capacity. Surrounded by payola, the ‘Dram’ were scheduled to appear somewhere else later, so they did their set and then left, taking their fans off like a swarm of bees. The second half featured our local singers singing to a somewhat depleted audience.
Many of the original group have supported the club for some forty years but like other folk clubs in the Solent area the numbers have dwindled. Folk clubs find a high turnover of members with average attendances being below twice per year. I suppose night clubs and gaming joints must suffer a similar decline? So we decided to think outside the box to [1] attract new members and [2] keep them by presenting the widest assortment of folk music.
So we set out our case to place a series of small advertisements in ‘Solent Life’, a free magazine to publicise our monthly meetings with the object of broadening our tastes and widening our appeal. We also found the idea of musical training in the form of guitar, voice and harmony workshops were popular. We already had the necessary Co-operative Bank Community Directplus account so we stressed what a valuable asset the club could be and the bank liked the idea and awarded us £1000. We hope to return the compliment by writing songs that support eco-friendliness.
Paul Hawkins
