News

As part of the "Managing a Masterpiece" project in the Stour Valley on the Essex / Suffolk border, the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust has been commissioned to run two lecture days for adults, about local folklore and customs, with the aim of equipping people to find out more themselves. These will take place in Bures on Saturday 14th April and Clare on Saturday 10th November. Places will be free but must be reserved through EATMT. We have a great line-up of speakers including Steve Roud, founder of the Roud Folk Song Index and expert on folklore, superstition and calendar customs, John Howson, co-director of EATMT, folk-song collector, photographer and recording engineer and Clive Paine, expert on all things to do with Suffolk history, plus exhibitions and an information pack.

More details about the wider project, including archaeology, traditional river boats, etc, may be found on the "Managing a Masterpiece" website. "Managing a Masterpiece" is a wide-ranging three year project funded by the Heritage Lottery Landscape Partnership Scheme.

The next series of evening classes for melodeon players started on Tuesday 6th March and is running fortnightly for four sessions in the centre of Stowmarket. The beginners class is taught by Ron Ross. We have some instruments to hire available (with or without lessons). The improvers class is taught by Katie Howson and is open to anyone with a good basic grasp of the instrument who'd like to take things a bit further and look at how to improve and refine their playing. Click here for a printable booking form or email us if you'd like more details about forthcoming classes.

Earlier in the year we were involved in filming a TV programme presented by Ade Edmondson. Our episode of the new series, “Ade in Britain” was shown on ITV1 on Thursday 10th November, and the series is being repeated on Sundays starting in January, so hope you catch it!

We have also recently recorded a feature for the BBC series “Escape to the Country”. This is a property hunt show featuring people wanting to move to a rural area, and each programme
includes some items of “local colour”. That’s us, folks! Our episode is to be presented by Johnny Irwin, who really enjoyed himself - having a go with a jig doll and even borrowing Percy West’s shoes and making a good stab at stepping under Doreen West’s helpful tuition. We'll let you know when the programme is to be shown.

If you're a film or programme maker or researcher, do get in touch. A press section of this website is in development over the winter of 2011/2. In the meantime, you're welcome to talk to us on 01449 771090 or email us at info@eatmt.fsnet.co.uk

Four years ago we ran a Film Night, featuring archive material of East Anglian singers, dancers and musicians. It was very popular, and we always intended to repeat it - so we're planning another one shortly.

The films will be shown on a large screen, so there’s a feel of “going to the flicks” and there will be suitable light refreshments available. Come and see the likes of Ted Chaplin and Tony Harvey, Bob Scarce, Sam Larner, Billy Bennington, Dick Hewitt, Font Whatling and Harkie Nesling performing. EATMT co-director John Howson will talk introduce each item, giving you some background information and no doubt one or two amusing stories along the way.

The Film Night will be at Haughley Village Hall on Saturday 3rd March 2012. Click here for a booking form.

24th March is the date for our next workshop day for melodeon and concertina players, which is shaping up very well, with a great choice of subjects and a superb line-up of tutors including: Ed Rennie, Matt Quinn, Dave Jolly, Issy Emeney, Alex Goldsmith, Rees Wesson, Katie Howson, Steve Dumpleton and concertina-ists Martyn White and Gavin Atkin.

Book up soon for your first choice of workshops, as they are beginning to fill up (as at 10.1.12 Workshops 7, 9 & 11 are already full).

Click here for full details and follow the links for a booking form. There is a priority booking period until Monday 9th January for Friends of EATMT ... please read on for details about joining the Friends of EATMT.

Please note that if you have received a yellow leaflet through the mail, workshops 8 and 16 should be swapped (i.e. absolute beginners' anglo-concertina is in the morning and absolute beginners' melodeon in the afternoon).

As part of the "Managing a Masterpiece" project, the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust is involving local primary

schools and community groups in learning about folk song and local musical traditions.

In 2011 we have been working in Essex with Ridgewell Primary School and in Suffolk with Great Waldingfield and

Bures St Mary primary schools and Clare Middle School. In 2012 we will be working with Wood Hall Primary in

Sudbury, and our early works has been so successful that we are hoping that the funding will be extended to take

in three more schools in the area for 2012/13. We have several more keen schools as possibilities, but if you know

of another one in the area that would be interested, please get in touch by emailing us.

Right: Rob Neal and children from Great Waldingfield Primary School in full voice, singing "Donnybrook Fair",

Do you like what we do?
Now would be a really good time to show your support and join the Friends of EATMT.

We’d like to encourage everyone who appreciates the work we do - whether it be this website, the events, the research and publications, the schools

and community projects, the exhibitions, the workshops and classes ... to join the Friends of EATMT and support our work into the future.

If you sing or listen to a local song, play or hear a local tune, dance or watch or stepdancing, at least part of that is probably down to the work of EATMT, which has been working to keep our local traditions alive and kicking into the twenty first century. If you receive a printed copy or an email version of this newsletter, it’s down to the hard work of our part-time staff and volunteers - and the same goes if you are reading this on the website now!

We are a small organisation but with a serious reputation for delivering professional projects and “punching above our weight”. We became a

registered charity in 2000 and are governed by a board of trustees. The membership fee is still £10 per year and hasn’t changed since we founded

the Friends more than eight years ago. Donations are always very welcome, a Gift Aid declaration helps it go even further, and we also welcome

longer-term enquiries about legacies etc.

Please visit our membership page to download a form. Thank you.

The English Country Music Weekend came to Essex in 2011 - and was by the seaside for the first time too! Prior to this, the last time it was in the eastern region was in 2001, when we organised it at the Museum of East Anglian Life - we liked it so much there that we then started Traditional Music Day. The organising team and people who attended the 2011 event liked it so much in Brightlingsea, that they are going to hold it there again in 2012, but it will definitely move to another part of the country again after that.

The dates for the 2012 event are 22nd - 24th June: for more information visit the Brightlingsea ECMW website.

The Brightlingsea ECMW was organised by concertina player Roger Digby, fiddler Liz Giddings and melodeonists Celia Kemp and Jon Naunton - this gives you a bit of a clue that the weekend is based around music! As Roger Digby writes: “It's worth making clear what the weekend is NOT. It's not a Folk Festival. There are no concerts, crèches and craft stalls; no big tops, big names and big egos. The great majority of the people who attend the ECMW are musicians who gather to play together with old and new friends.” There are several session venues and a programme of talks etc. You really do need to buy a ticket and not just drop in for the pub sessions without one, or it could be swamped. It's also nothing to do with country'n'western music, it's very much about traditional English music as played by country (as in RURAL!) musicians in the past, such as Suffolk's Oscar Woods and Norfolk's Billy Bennington - amongst many others, of course!

Norris “Win” Winstone died recently aged 98. Win was a founder member of Norwich-based morris team Kemp’s Men and an influential figure on local country dance and music. Fellow Kemp's Men Peter Mayne and David Robertson sent the following obituary.

Most of you reading this will already be aware, I’m sure, of the sad passing of Norris Winstone at the age of 98. Though when I say ‘sad’, I should add that the funeral was as jolly an event as possible under the circumstances, enlivened (if that’s the word I’m groping for, given the depredations of age, infirmity and alcohol) by the dancing of Kemp’s Men, the side which Win helped to form in 1953. Nor were they alone; over the years, Win had been connected with many other sides in one way or another, and men came from all corners of the country to help us celebrate his long and full life.

For those who did not know him, let me try, briefly, to paint a picture. Physically, he was not an imposing figure: imagine, if you will, Winnie the Pooh pumping away at a somewhat battered melodeon. But his stature was measured in more than feet and inches. Take into account his contribution to music and dance in Norfolk, and he was a towering figure indeed. In fact, English music and the Morris were his abiding passions (though he also harboured an unaccountable enthusiasm for the Hawaiian steel guitar, which he played in a wartime trio - whether to entertain the troops or to deter the invader remains a matter for learned debate).

When I first joined Kemp’s Men of Norwich in the mid-70’s, he had already retired from the teaching profession. But I soon came to realise that he had not given up teaching, and probably never would. Like any good teacher, he had an encyclopaedic knowledge of his subject, and a complete readiness to share it – though he was always receptive to different interpretations of the Morris, and supportive of those who, like me, tried to lead Kemp’s Men in new and occasionally ill-judged directions.

He also had a prodigious memory. Wherever we danced in Norfolk, he would be approached by one ex-pupil or another, with a hesitant “Do you remember me, Mr Winstone?” – and I don’t remember seeing him stumped. What’s more, I have rarely met anyone who carried so many tunes in his head, while still finding room for an impressive collection of dreadful jokes, not always as politically correct as we would consider necessary today.

For more than half a century, Win was a mainstay of the team, hardly missing a summer performance or winter practice session, and apparently as enduring as the tradition itself. Well into his 80’s, he continued to accompany the team on strenuous 3-day Whitsuntide tours, sleeping on village hall floors with the rest of us. The club’s AGMs were also illuminated by what became known as the ‘Winterval’, when he would distribute a selection of small, and sometimes slightly barbed presents, along with his genial observations on the year gone past.

His contribution, however, was not restricted to the side of which he was a founder member. Several others in the area benefited from his knowledge, his playing and his time. All three were given generously, and for no reward other than to see English traditional music and dance survive and flourish. I should add that Win’s enthusiasm encompassed social as well as ritual dance, teaching and playing for a country dance group on a weekly basis, providing one-to-one tuition for a number of aspiring musicians, and sharing his immense repertoire with anyone who cared to ask.

In short, it is hard to think of anyone who has contributed so much, so generously, so consistently, and over such a long period of time to the enjoyment of English music and dance in our region – and even harder to imagine anyone making such a major contribution in such a modest and self-effacing way.

This year saw the 10th Traditional Music Day at the Museum of East Anglian Life in Stowmarket. We use many of the historic buildings for concerts and informal events, so even when there are hundreds of people, the events themselves are small-scale and intimate with no blaring speakers to disrupt the acoustic music and birdsong! The line-up included the fine young singer Jim Causley, perennial favourites The Orchard Family, the wonderfully eccentric Duck Soup, talks from the legendary Shirley Collins, a jig doll party and a focus on Essex as well as stepping, singing and music all over the site.

Many people put this in their diary from one year to the next, but if you’ve never been before, you’ll find a friendly welcome and a unique atmosphere with great music and plenty of other things to do around the site. The Osier café (under new management) provides food all day, a hot evening meal and breakfast for campers. All the income to run the event comes from our advance ticket sales, so we encourage you to buy your tickets this way, please! Also, for future reference, please note that there are no event tickets available on the day and the box office closes at 4pm on the Thursday preceding the event. Although it is still OK to come on the site for the usual museum admission ticket price, you won't be able to go into the actual events.

Click here for details of this year's event and previous ones. Traditional Music Day in 2012 is on Saturday 1st September.

Click here for a short compilation video of the 2011 day made by Uggy Brown. A further search on the Youtube website will turn up others from this year and previous years.

Click here for Pat Pickles' article about her experiences (with misbehaving jig dolls!) at the 2012 Traditional Music Day.

The 2011 Stepdance Day took place on Sunday 10th July at the Swan in Worlingworth, near Framlingham in central Suffolk, a little gem of a pub with a real old-fashioned feel to it.

11 year-old Ella Beal won the Steve Monk Memorial Stepdance Competition. Ella has been stepdancing since she was 7 years old, but that’s 4 years ago now, so she has a few years experience behind her, but it still came as an amazing surprise when she was announced as the winner, beating dancers of all ages. Ella’s mum, Lindsay, has been “instrumental” in supporting her, as she plays melodeon for Ella to dance to. Second was Simon Ritchie, and joint third were “Uncle” Mo Allum and Simon Harmer. Best newcomer was Pam Russell and best under 16 Stevie Chenery.

The Font Whatling Traditional Stepdance Trophy was won by the irrepressible Percy West with Lenny Whiting second and Doreen West third. Special mention was made of 8 year-old Alfie Matthews for superb dancing in this competition.

Many thanks to the Swan at Worlingworth for providing the marquee, beer and food, and to everyone else who helped out, joined in or watched!

The 2012 Stepdance Day is likely to be on Sunday 29th July, subject to confirmation.

EATMT directors John and Katie Howson received Gold Badge Awards from the English Folk Dance and Song Society on 16th April 2011. The awards and citations were presented at a special event at Cecil Sharp House in London called "It's Just What We Do", curated by John and Katie Howson in aid of the EFDSS Vaughan Williams Memorial Library. The citation was read by EATMT trustee and EFDSS Library Director, Malcolm Taylor, and the badges were presented by EFDSS president, Shirley Collins.

Katie and John were awarded the Gold Badge for their work with the Trust, fieldwork and collecting, the Veteran recording label and the many other contributions they have made to the development of folksong, music and dance over the last thirty years. Click here to read the full citation.

Having reached No. 30 in our series of profiles of traditional musicians we decided it was time to branch out a bit, and we will now feature a wider range of articles. We now have the first articles in three new series: Village Portraits, Tracing a Tune and Behind the Songs. Village Portrait No.1 is about Mendlesham, Tracing a Tune No.1 is about "The Perfect Cure" and Behnind the Songs No.1 is about Roy Last's song "Peter the Paynter" a.k.a. "Escape from Bury Gaol".

We have a number of melodeons available for hire by the month (within Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire and Essex), and many people who do this also attend evening classes run by EATMT. They include two-row models in the keys of D and G, and also one-row models in the key of C. We also have four anglo-concertinas for hire as well. If you’re interested in hiring an instrument, please give us a ring and see when there is one available.

We are quite often contacted by people with melodeons for sale, so it's worth giving us a ring, if you're in the Suffolk area.

The following mouthorgans are all as new except where indicated, and they have been cleaned. All come with original case. Prices are approximately 50% of new prices, so you can grab a real bargain! Proceeds will go towards supporting our current research projects on stepdancing, jig dolls and dulcimers.

If you are interested in any of these instruments, please email us to arrange pick-up / postage (not included in price).

We also have a couple of large bass harmonicas - please email us if you're interested in something a bit different!

We’re always pleased to welcome new people to the friendly and hard-working team of volunteers who help us out with mailouts and other office-based tasks, and with stewarding and helping at events. Please give us a ring on 01449 771090 if you would like to help out in any way. We'd like to hear from anyone with First Aid qualifications who might be prepared to help out occasionally at our events.

Do you like what we do?
Now would be a really good time to show your support and join the Friends of EATMT.

We’d like to encourage everyone who appreciates the work we do - whether it be this website, the events, the research and publications, the schools

and community projects, the exhibitions, the workshops and classes ... to join the Friends of EATMT and support our work into the future.

We are a small organisation but with a serious reputation for delivering professional projects and “punching above our weight”. We became a

registered charity in 2000 and are governed by a board of trustees. The membership fee is still £10 per year and hasn’t changed since we founded

the Friends more than eight years ago. Donations are always very welcome, a Gift Aid declaration helps it go even further, and we also welcome

longer-term enquiries about legacies etc.

Please visit our membership page to download a form. Thank you.

This year's Melodeons and More day took place on Saturday 26th March in Mendlesham, Suffolk.

Well it had to happen one year - at 9am came the panic phone call “I’ve broken down” from one of our tutors. It was Dave Jolly, a regular stallholder at our annual Melodeons and More event, who was due to run an afternoon workshop on French music this year. Although he actually wasn’t far from Mendlesham, he would have struggled to get here. By an absolutely amazing stroke of good luck, Richard Overton had called in during the morning without any commitments, and was able to take over the class at only four hours notice! Dave got his car sorted and was able to make his evening gig elsewhere, so although it was a mighty disappointment, all was not completely lost.

Apart from this last minute hitch, the rest of the day went well, and was a lively and inspiring event for those who attended classes, dropped into the music market, or came to the Squeezebox Special concert. A personal highlight was the extraordinarily good playing from the workshop participants in the afternoon showcase, including a group of harmonica players playing for their tutor to dance to - fabulous! As ever there were plenty of suggestions from participants and lots of positive comments:

The highlight of the evening concert, for many people, was young harmonica player Will Pound. The rest of the world had to make do with seeing him on television that night (in BBC2's series "Goldie's band: By Royal Appointment" where he worked with Goldie and Cerys Matthews amongst other musical mentors) but the audience in Mendlesham were the only ones seeing him live!

In February 2011, EATMT co-directors John and Katie Howson were featured in a "Question and Answer" style article in the "Suffolk" magazine. Click here to read the online version of the article.

EATMT member and photographer John Halliday has kindly provided an opportunity for you to see more of his photos from EATMT events, and to make links with other enthusiasts. You don't have to belong to Facebook to see the photographs, but you do if you want to post information about events, or your own photos etc. If you want to join the Facebook group, it's called Traditional Music of East Anglia. If you just want to look at the photos, follow the appropriate link here:

There are, of course, photos of most of these events on our website too, from several different photographers who work with us on our events - many thanks to all of them! Various people also posted photos from the 2010 and 2008 Melodeon Makers courses: click here and follow the links at the bottom of the page.

We celebrated our tenth anniversary with a good old-fashioned knees-up at Tostock Village Hall, near Bury St Edmunds on Saturday 9th October 2010.

Being the traditional Harvest Festival season, we took the chance to celebrate our local agricultural heritage as well, so we invited horseman Ray Hubbard to entertain us with songs and stories, but unfortunately Ray had complications following surgery, and was still in hospital, feeling very frustrated at missing this and other musical events. We were very lucky to be able to welcome the master of melodeon and daft songs, Tony Hall in his place. We had seasonal songs and reading from Ian Prettyman, Rob Neal and others, a large gathering of young stepdancers, and a jolly evening. The raffle was a highlight (!) as usual, and we had a lovely seasonal meal, thanks to a great team of helpers and donations and support from Alder Carr Farm (Needham Market), Pakenham Watermill, Langham Herbs, Grange Farm (Woolpit) and McCarthy's Country Stores (Bury St Edmunds)

Our resident photographer, John Halliday, has posted some photographs of the 2010 event which may be viewed by clicking here.

This year's Traditional Music Day took place on Saturday 4th September at the Museum of East Anglian Life in the centre of Suffolk with a cracking line-up of guests. Events included concert spots in Edgar’s Farmhouse: a great place to see the performers in an atmospheric and informal setting: season-ticket holders were able to enjoy the unparalleled talents of Geordie singer and instrumentalist Jim Bainbridge, The Askew Sisters (Hazel and Emily, fine singers and musicians), storyteller Billy Teare with Irish singer Kathleen O' Sullivan and Chris Coe &Johnny Adams (music, song and stepdancing). There was also a “Focus on Cambridgeshire” event with Mary Humphreys and Anahata, talks on fiddle and singing traditions, a ceilidh, jig doll get-together, stepdancing and plenty of opportunities to see, hear, sing, play the best in English traditional music.

For more details on the artists and programme click here. For a timetable of events during the day, click here.

This year's Stepdance Day took place on Sunday 4th July 2010 in Worlingworth, near Framlingham in Suffolk.

After a short tutorial session, there followed the Steve Monk Memorial Competition (allcomers) and the Font Whatling Trophy. It is just over ten years since Steve Monk died, and his widow, Marilyn, spoke movingly about how much she appreciated the fact that this event was still keeping his memory alive amongst so many people. Marilyn is a judge for that competition, and Font Whatling's son Brian is on the panel for the Font Whatling Traditional Stepdance competition.

There were plenty of participants in the workshop session and both competitions, the results of which were as follows:

Click here for information about stepdancing, or click here for photos of the 2009 event. Font Whatling is a recent subject in our Personal Portrait" series about traditional musicians, singers and dancers: click here to read more.

We were very sad indeed to report the death in May 2010 of Richard Davies, stepdancer and singer from Cromer on the Norfolk coast, and known by thousands of people as the former coxswain of the lifeboat there and a huge part of the local community.

Richard came from a fishing family and was the seventh generation to serve on the Cromer lifeboat, succeeding his uncle, Henry 'Shrimp' Davies, as coxswain in 1976 and retiring in December 1999. His son John is the current coxswain, having taken over in 2003. Richard joined the lifeboat in 1960 and received several awards for gallantry during his lifeboat career.

We first met Richard nearly thirty years ago, introduced by Ann-Marie Hulme and Peter Clifton, who had been researching stepdancing in Norfolk. He made an immediate impact with his ruddy face and initial reserve giving way quickly to engaging sociability and enthusiasm. At the time (early 1980s) it seemed that stepdancing was on the wane, and for a lot of years Richard felt himself to be one of the last: when we met up he was sometimes reluctant to dance, saying that people expected to see “Riverdance” style stuff now. However, he still enjoyed a waltz or polka with wife Julie and he taught his daughter Fiona and grandchildren Ben and Emily to step. This encouraged a resurgence of interest helped along by the presence of other enthusiasts nearby such as Chris Holderness and Richard and Monica Blake. Richard’s dance style was very much in the Cromer tradition, and his singing repertoire also reflected his fishing life.

Richard was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour in May 2009, and was active for much of the last twelve months with the things that he loved – singing until only a few weeks before his death on 5^th May 2010.

His funeral was held in Cromer Parish Church on 19^th May and was attended by over a thousand people. There were pews full of lifeboatmen, the local fire crew, freemasons, fishermen, and fellow pony-and-trap owners and hare-coursing enthusiasts. The tributes described different aspects of Richard’s larger-than-life character and many tales were told reflecting his ebullient nature: when asked why he wanted to buy a mule, he answered “So that there’s someone in this family more obstinate than me!” As his coffin was carried out of the church, his favourite stepdance tune “Pigeon on the Gate” or “Yarmouth Hornpipe” was played by myself, John Howson, Chris Holderness and Richard Blake, as Richard himself had requested. At the gathering afterwards, where there were hundreds of people, Percy and Doreen West, Leo Baker, Lenny Whiting and others paid further tribute to Richard with some stepdancing and lively music.

Photos from left to right: Richard dancing outside Sam Larner's cottage in Winterton, 2008; Richard with fellow steppers Percy West and Lenny Whiting, Hingham, 2005 (both John Halliday) ; Richard dancing at Traditional Music Day (Chris Gill), 2005.

There are now 30 short articles in our series of "Personal Portraits" of traditional singers and musicians from East Anglia. These are all written by people who knew the performers, and contain a mixture of analysis and anecdote. Contributors to the series include Martin Carthy, Shirley Collins, Reg Hall, Roger Digby and Keith Summers, alongside EATMT directors John and Katie Howson. The latest article in the series is about the Old Hat Concert Party, and there are others about legendary musicians Oscar Woods, Billy Bennington and Billy Cooper, singers Harry Cox, Sam Larner and Walter Pardon and many lesser-known people. Each article also contains a discography so you can find recordings of them too. Follow the link at the top or the bottom of each page, or click here to reach the index page.

Blyth Voices song book (2003, republished 2008): 48-page book containing songs collected by the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in the town of Southwold on the Suffolk coast in 1910. It is also of interest to social historians, the local community and the many people who visit and love Southwold, as it includes original research into the singers, and descriptions of traditional music-making in the town throughout the twentieth century, together with a number of fascinating old photos. To order a copy via our online shop (price £6.75 inc p&p), click here.

Do you like what we do?
Now would be a really good time to show your support and join the Friends of EATMT.

We’d like to encourage everyone who appreciates the work we do - whether it be this website, the events, the research and publications, the schools

and community projects, the exhibitions, the workshops and classes ... to join the Friends of EATMT and support our work into the future.

We are a small organisation but with a serious reputation for delivering professional projects and “punching above our weight”. We became a

registered charity in 2000 and are governed by a board of trustees. The membership fee is still £10 per year and hasn’t changed since we founded

the Friends more than eight years ago. Donations are always very welcome, a Gift Aid declaration helps it go even further, and we also welcome

longer-term enquiries about legacies etc.

Please visit our membership page to download a form. Thank you.

This page is updated regularly, and older news items are now archived on a separate webpage - click here.

Make & Model	Key	EATMT price
Hohner Comet (40-hole)	C (2) G (1)	£25
Hohner Unsere Liebling (40)	C (1)	£25
Hohner Echo (40) (red case)	G (1)	£18
Hohner Echo (48) (blue case)	G (1)	£20
Hohner Tremelo (48)	C (1)	£20
Hohner Echo (40) (red box)	C (1)	£4
Golden Cup (48)	D (1)	£3
Suzuki Easy Rider (10)	D (1)	£6
Spirit Tribal blower (10)	D (1)	£5
Hohner Chrometta (8)	C (1) (used)	£15
Hohner Chrometta (10)	C (1) (used)	£20