Village Portraits

Village Portraits

The following articles about villages with strong traditions of singing, dancing and music-making appeared in East Anglian Traditional Music Trust newsletters from 2011 onwards.

Mendlesham

Village Portrait No.1 - Mendlesham

by John Howson

Mendlesham was chosen for the first of this series, to coincide with the Melodeons and More event in March 2011, which for eight years has taken place in Mendlesham, a large village which lies midway between Stowmarket and Diss, and which has a history of traditional music, documented by John Howson in “Many a Good Horseman”. The article includes the the outlying hamlet of Mendlesham Green which also had a lively tradition of music-making.

When I was out and about, recording songs and tunes and memories in the early 1980s, I spent a lot of time in Mendlesham, and it appears that all the pubs had played host to home-made entertainments over the years - at one time there were four pubs in the village itself as well as the Green Man at Mendlesham Green, which I was to hear a lot about.

One of the first musicians I interviewed was Reg Pyett (above, left) who had worked on the Mid Suffolk Light Railway, on which Mendlesham was a stop between Haughley and Laxfield. Reg played a number of old hornpipes and polkas as well as a selection of song tunes, some of which he’d learned from the music playing on the steam-driven roundabouts at local fairs early in the 20th century.

There were tales of many box players in the village, and then a visit to the Suffolk Record Office turned up a photograph of a fiddle player, identified only as a Mr Clements (above, centre). Subsequent discussions with various Clements family members never really reached a consensus on which individual it was! He may have been known as “Tiddles”; he may have been Sam Clements (b.1824) or Tom Clements (b. 1836) who both lived in the village up until at least 1901, but the photo may have been taken as late as 1930.

I met two great singers in Mendlesham Green, both of whom have been featured in past articles in the newsletter, Gordon Syrett and Roy Last. The regular singing place in the early 20th century was the Green Man (above, right), which, after I had listened to all the accounts from various people, I began to think it must have been the mid Suffolk equivalent of the better known Blaxhall Ship. Gordon Syrett told me that Saturday nights would regularly include melodeon player Ted Thorpe, singer Pom Hart and stepdancers Dinkie Finbow and Arthur (photo, below left) and Walter Loveridge, whose family had a caravan parked permanently at Tan Office, near Ted Thorpe’s farm. “Tinker” Parker, whose wife was sister to the Loveridge dancers, and whom I knew as he lived in Haughley at the time I was researching, took me over to visit Gordon, and had many memories of the pub: “Old Pom Hart, he lived next door to the pub, he’d come strolling in about 7 o’clock with a big red handkerchief round his neck and sit in the corner and he’d be the one would generally start. There was Harry Souter and old Frisk, and they died with scores of old songs, they never did write them down.”

About the stepdancing he commented, “They’d stand on two bricks, and they could double and treble time it; that was a treat to watch. Yet they learned it themselves. There never had anyone say do it this way or that way. How they learned, they’d get a plank across a ditch with a bit of spring in it, and they’d get on that and go up and down!” He also told how his uncle Elijah Smith challenged a girl dancing on a stage at Whittlesey, doing the “Seven Lancashire Steps” who was dancing on a brass plate and wore taps! “They call her good? I’d beat her on one foot!”

Ted Thorpe had a fearsome reputation as a melodeon player, particularly for hornpipes such as “Jack Robinson” and polkas for stepping to, despite the fact he had lost the thumb and all the
fingers on his left hand in an accident with farming machinery aged 4. His daughter, Blanche Neal, a formidable woman with a shotgun above the fire in the farm office when I met her in the
1980s, told the family tale that he taught himself to play as a youngster, whilst sitting by the roadside looking after the cows.

Mendlesham Green, although only a tiny community, also boasted a village band, run by William Arbon, who opened up his carpenter’s shop for practices. The band consisted of brass instruments, drums and at least a couple of fiddle payers - it had grown up from the ashes of a string band that played in the Baptist Chapel. A description dating from the very early 20th century, written by Walter Tye, the schoolmaster, mentions that they wore uniforms, William’s with a distinctive silver trim. In 1983, singer Gordon Syrett (b.1887) could remember most of the people in the photo (below, right), which was perhaps taken by William Arbon himself, as this multi-talented man was also the local photographer.

In 1984, we organised an event (English Country Music Weekend) in Mendlesham to bring local traditions to a wider audience and in 2002 it was one of four villages featured in EATMT’s first community project, “Tuning In”.

The village continues to welcome traditional music and singing events.

Photos: Reg Pyett by John Howson; Mr Clements, courtesy SRO;

The Green Man from the Veteran postcard collection; Mr and Mrs

Arthur Loveridge, courtesy of the Parker family; Mendlesham

Green Band, courtesy of Gordon Syrett.

Discography: VTDC8CD ‘Many A Good Horseman’ (double CD)

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