Lockdown: Don't let it bring you down

• Cambridgeshire

Strumming and Dreaming - from Les Ray

On the Crosby Stills Nash & Young album 4 Way Street, when introducing his song, Neil Young says: “Here is a new song, it's guaranteed to bring you right down; it's called ‘Don't Let It Bring You Down’”.

In contrast, this issue’s Strumming and Dreaming is genuinely designed not to bring you down, after all, there are plenty of other things that are doing that right now. That’s the aim, and the means is by telling you about a couple of very positive initiatives intended to bring you live music during the lockdown. Hopefully it will succeed.

Of course, the Mardles website includes lots of other pointers to where to find great music online coming from our region, but I thought I’d focus on a couple of initiatives that are close to my heart... and my home. 

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Milkmaid Molly

• Morris

INCLUSIVE MORRIS

Milkmaid Molly’s whole ethos is to support vulnerable and disadvantaged people to enrich their lives through the joy of music and movement.

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Magazine

• Newsreel - latest news 
• Features - in depth
• Opinion - your thoughts
• Morris On! - everything Morris
• Back Issues - PDFs of the Printed Mardles

Me and my recorder

by Val Haines

There’s a meme going around social media: just when you think parenting can’t get any harder your kid comes home with a recorder. Us recorder players still have a lot of convincing to do.

Flashback to 1969. I’m at primary school and we are told to line up and take a recorder out of a large box. I’m at the back of the queue, as always, as my name is at the back of the Early daysalphabet. When I get to the box there is one left, a dark brown one, Bakelite I learned much later. Everybody else has a pale wooden recorder with a white top. Appearance is not the only difference I realise as we all begin to blow. Everybody else’s sound like asthmatic mice – mine sounds like a bird. Nothing I can do can make my recorder wheeze like theirs and this beautiful sound encouraged me on.  

Unlike the current meme my parents never objected to my recorder. We were told don’t take the recorder home. I took it home. We were told don’t tell your parents you have to buy one. I told my parents we had to buy one, after all once a week playing wasn’t enough, but I had to wait until my eleventh birthday. The night before I could hear my dad blowing it and my mum saying shhh, she’ll hear you. I was too excited to sleep.

I found early on that I could play lots of tunes from memory which meant that if I had to read music it slowed me down. There seemed to be an automatic connection from ears to brain to fingers. When I heard Sparky’s Magic Piano on the radio, I thought yes, that’s how it works. My teacher liked my playing and asked me to play in assembly. I refused to play alone and asked a friend to join me. We played together but I didn’t enjoy it at all. She was too loud and blew all wrong and didn’t think about how it could sound nice. I was too shy to play on my own in public so continued to march around the house playing instead: TV adverts, hymns, pop songs, anything. Then it was time to go to secondary school and I got my trumpet, flugel horn and cornet. Recorders became a bit childish, but at least you could hide them in your bag.

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Frederick (Fred) Sanders - an appreciation

• Suffolk
• Essex
• Morris

 

Fred Sanders

Neville Parry, Squire of The Morris Men of Little Egypt has sent the following tribute to Frederick Sanders.

“It is with immense sadness and grief that we announce the passing of our dear friend and Founder of the Morris Men of Little Egypt, Frederick Sanders.  Frederick passed away at home on Monday 24^th May surrounded by his beloved family.

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Thorington Theatre

Introducing Thorington Theatre

The new 350-seat outdoor live music and theatre venue on the Suffolk Coast. Built in the husk of a WWII bomb crater that has been reclaimed by nature, the theatre is surrounded by woodland, birdsong and the gentle rustling of trees.

 

For those that haven’t been yet, Thorington Theatre are quickly establishing themselves as one of the best live music venues in the region. Not only is the calibre of performer improving year on year, but the theatre also serves as a woodland getaway. It’s a hidden gem in an area of outstanding natural beauty, where you can leave the hustle and bustle of the everyday behind and soak in the great outdoors with a drink in hand. Last season (Summer 2022) groups like, The Spooky Men’s Chorale, Alabama 3, James Righton, John Etheridge and more blew audiences away with shows that blurred the line between audience and performers. The layout of the stage space puts performers within touching distance.

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