Mardles

Big Whistle

Big Whistle has one aim: to be the best tin whistle shop in the world.

Established in 2000 by Phil Brown - known by many simply as "the whistle man" - the business was taken over by a trio of friends in Sheffield, England, in 2021. Since then, Big Whistle has gone from strength to strength, expanding its offering and customer base.

With over 20 brands stocked, and over 200 different whistles available, it's safe to say that no other shop in the world specialises in whistles the way Big Whistle do.

"Our goal is pretty simple," explains James Pannell, Managing Director. "We want to offer the best service in the world to the tin whistle community."

The sheer range of brands available is one aspect of the service. But James is keen to emphasise that they don't just stock any brand. "Of course, we stock most of the biggest, most popular brands, because they make great whistles. But we also work with a lot of smaller makers who are less well-known."

While some of the big-hitting popular names include the likes of Carbony, MK, and Dixon, the shop also stocks many smaller, upcoming brands, including iVolga, Shush Instruments, Harmony Flutes, Rui Gomes, and Thornton whistles.

"Many makers are evolving their whistles as tastes change, and people look for different things out of a whistle. In recent times, we've seen a lot of interest in quiet whistles, like the Shush whistle, and in low whistles that are more comfortable to hold, like Carbony's close-spacing model. We've also seen a lot of demand for affordable wooden whistles, with iVolga proving very popular. We're expecting to see more makers start to move in these innovative directions as the tin whistle continues to evolve."

If you're looking to learn more about some of the exciting makers on the scene today, take a look at Big Whistle's tin whistle buyer's guide for the low-down on their recommended brands.

Big Whistle

Big Whistle has one aim: to be the best tin whistle shop in the world.

With over 20 brands stocked, and over 200 different whistles available, it's safe to say that no other shop in the world specialises in whistles the way Big Whistle do.

"Our goal is pretty simple," explains James Pannell, Managing Director. "We want to offer the best service in the world to the tin whistle community."

If you're looking to learn more about some of the exciting makers on the scene today, take a look at Big Whistle's tin whistle buyer's guide for the low-down on their recommended brands.

Kath Tait Diva of the Dysfunctional

LT Issue114 Kath Tate

John Clare, poet and musician

Cambridgeshire

John Clare (1793 – 1864) is best known as a poet, but was also folk musician and folk song collector. He lived in the Peterborough area.

The countryside around the area where Clare lived is now being threatened by a huge housing develpment and the organisation Protect Rural Peterborough is attempted to fight this development.

I have been sent this article by this group.

John Clare, the peasant poet, was born, grew up and roamed the wide common lands around his home in Helpston, west of Peterborough and east of Stamford. His extraordinary curiosity and empathy reached wider and deeper than others. He felt living things, quivering with fearful birds, and absorbed the spiritual significance of places. Pasque flowers spoke to him of the blood and dust of the Romans on King Street and Langley Bush drew him magnetically.

Langley Bush was an ancient tree growing near a Bronze age barrow, a Roman shrine, an Anglo Saxon court and gibbet. A gathering place for shepherds '...swains and gipsies...' and John Clare, a village fiddler. He thrived on the 'round of merriment' dancing, drinking and scraping his fiddle with renowned musicians amongst the 'Smith gang of Gypsies' . Clare collected folk songs and tunes from all around him, some written but many simply heard and transcribed. In his Journal he notes that he '...got the tune of Highland Mary from Wisdom Smith and picked another sweet tune without a name as he fiddled it...' Wisdom Smith was a patriarch of a large family, whose descendants live on in John Clare's beloved countryside.

Clare's sensitivity was his gift and his curse. He didn't just love his natural surroundings, he was connected to nature so deeply that he suffered when it was destroyed by Enclosure. The pain and anger in many of his poems like 'The Mores' and 'Remembrances' and viscerally in 'The Lament of Swordy Well' as greedy landowners '...turned my old green hills about and pickt my very bones...'

Today there is another painful struggle over the heart of John Clare Countryside. A nationally important, generational opportunity exists to create a vision of landscape wide rewilding connecting the rivers Nene and Welland from Peterborough to Stamford. This would enable wildlife in all its forms to move over a hundred and fifty square miles. Twenty-one villages and SSSIs, local landowners, local councillors, nationally renowned archaeologists, botanists, DEFRA and all the regional wildlife charities have been working together for many years to help recreate the countryside that Clare would have known. HOWEVER, sixty years ago Homes England bought the critical southern part, for Peterborough New Town. Four times the site has been refused and removed from the plan, once by Government, as unnecessary and in the wrong place, 5 miles from the city. If their fifth attempt succeeds up to 7000 houses, warehousing and industry could destroy the John Clare's countryside, for a second time, unless we can stop it.

The group has produced this route plan: Walking in John Clare's footsteps:
Walking in John Clares footprints walk

There is a lot more information about Clare on Wikipedia, of which this is an extract:
Clare's father was, according to Clare, a 'noted singer', and Clare himself played the fiddle and collected folk songs and tunes.^[49] Regarding his fiddle-playing ability, he described himself as "a decent scraper",^[50] and collected over two hundred folk tunes in two books, the Northampton Manuscripts Nos. 12 and 13.^[51]

As well as collecting folk tunes, Clare also collected many folk songs which are recorded in the Northampton Manuscript No. 18, and the Peterborough Manuscripts B4 and B7. According to George Deacon,^[49] the Northampton Manuscript No. 18 contains "more polished and refined versions" of songs which were originally written up in a rougher form in the two Peterborough Manuscripts, B4 and B7. Deacon's research led him to view the two Peterborough manuscripts as more authentic, inasmuch as they showed, "less conscious interference from the poet in Clare" than the versions of the songs in the Northampton manuscript.^[49]

Bob Wood at The Canopy Theatre

BOB WOOD – CANOPY THEATRE BECCLES Saturday 30th May 2026 7.30 p.m.

Bob Wood

Bob hails from Scotland and lives in London. An engaging solo singer, he’s known also as a nifty finger-style guitarist who performs with an easy-going sense of humour. Adopting a range of open tunings on guitar, he has been described by Steve Tilston as “..one of the deftest pickers and arrangers of songs it has been my pleasure to hear...a real delight.’’

Bob has made two albums (When the Moon Sits Fat on a Scudding Cloud and After the Swithering) which national folk magazines have called delightful, haunting, reflective and exquisite. Ian McCalman described the first album as “one of my "most played" over the years; surely the greatest reflection of genuine musical appreciation.” He has been busy performing in lots of UK folk clubs this year.

How Ireland Treats Its Free Thinkers - The Life and Death of Sinead O'Connor

An interesting article here from The (Irish) Journal of Music

Sinead OConnor

https://journalofmusic.com/opinion/how-ireland-treats-its-free-thinkers-life-and-death-sinead-o-connor?utm_source=The+Journal+of+Music+Newsletter&utm_campaign=767faf6970-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_5_20_2021_13_47_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9c6415866a-767faf6970-334519564

Old Glory Molly; "An unpretentious gem of performance art”

Morris

The following article written by David Bartlett, singer with Bury St Edmunds-based acapella folk singers Sound Tradition, first appeared on 23^rd February 2024 in the Folk column of the Bury Free Press. It was much admired and appreciated by Old Glory.

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Big Whistle

Big Whistle

Kath Tait Diva of the Dysfunctional

John Clare, poet and musician

Bob Wood at The Canopy Theatre

BOB WOOD – CANOPY THEATRE BECCLES Saturday 30th May 2026 7.30 p.m.

How Ireland Treats Its Free Thinkers - The Life and Death of Sinead O'Connor

Old Glory Molly; "An unpretentious gem of performance art”

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