Local Group Report – Lewes – Wednesday 18th December 2019

Another wet winter evening, so we were surprised to find that The John Harvey Tavern was very full and noisy with Christmas trade and customers were tucking into festive fare in our usual meeting place. One can hardly make a fuss when the Tavern allow us to use their dining area for free but, fortunately, Sandria has recently moved from Peacehaven to the other end of Cliffe High Street about 200 yards away and she offered us shelter away from the Inn. The boys went to the supermarket to purchase bottled beers and it wasn’t long before eleven singers sat around the large kitchen table and launched into a request time of winter songs: Sweet Chiming Bells, The Fields Lie Silent Now, On Sussex Hills, The Magpie, Where Stormy Winds Do Blow, Masters in This Hall, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Copper’s Christmas Song and Angel Gabriel.

In the break, Sandria made teas and coffees for us and we discussed our singing possibilities spreading further into East Sussex. Adrian announced that he is going to take some of our Sussex songs as far as Timperley, Greater Manchester, in the New Year and no doubt others will be taking songs to festivals during 2020. We then resumed singing with Apple Tree Wassailing Song, Wassail, Wassail All Over The Town, Sugar Wassail, Here We Go A-wassailing, followed by Adrian’s East Sussex Drinking Song, Poor Froze-Out Gardeners, As Shepherds Watched Their Flocks (Pentonville) and The Sussex Mummers Carol (Righteous Joseph) before closing the evening with Thousands or More. Thank you to Sandria for saving the evening and inviting us into her home, it proved a pretty near-perfect evening.

Next time we will be back to our usual Tuesday evening, starting on 21st January, at The John Harvey Tavern. In the meantime, enjoy seeing in the new decade, 2020 has a good ring to it.

Editor's note: apologies for the late appearance on our website of this report, which I received several weeks ago.