Local Group Report – Lewes Tuesday 17th May 2016

We welcomed five new faces from Eastbourne, Cuckfield and Seaford, so there were 16 singers to make a good sound to compete with the party next door at The John Harvey Tavern. Tina had planned an excellent mixture of songs new and old, so that everyone could join in, starting with Rolling in the Dew. The newer Woodcutter’s Song and Smuggler’s Song needed a few notes to be corrected but we galloped through Come Write Me Down and O Good Ale with its reduced verses. Run of the Downs with its line of hills, east to west, was a tongue twister but with practice it should become as easy as The West Sussex Drinking Song or On Sussex Hills! Pleasant and Delightful was already known to two of our newcomers so the alterations to fit in with The Secret Shore Project proved a minor problem. Jim the Carter Lad and Follow Me ’ome will work really well for performances when we manage to speed them up and enjoy their lively rhythms. We then sailed through the Constant Lovers when Tina asked us to treat it like a music hall number and emphasize the roll of the waves and also to start the ghostly last verse quietly. Tina reminded us of the music for Oak, Ash and Thorn but we will need to print off the words from the website and do some homework. Finally, Tina asked Adrian to sing the verses of The East Sussex Drinking Song while we joined in the choruses. But that wasn’t the end of the evening because John K sang Searching For Lambs and Jasna sang a Croatian song about Fishermen and their nets and got us to sing the choruses!