A Celebration of Norfolk Traditional Music, Song and Dance
Sunday 28 March
Briston Copeman Centre
Chris Holderness
We were blessed with the weather, as people descended upon the hall for an afternoon to celebrate the county’s rich musical heritage, and the event turned out to be worthy of the sunshine: a well-attended and vibrant afternoon in every respect. The hall filled up quickly, people stayed for the full programme and others drifted in across the afternoon.
The proceedings kicked off with a few tunes from the Unthank Irregulars, a selection of a few of the myriad collected in the county. This was followed by a succession of short films from the East Anglian Traditional Music Trust’s archive. As well as the general idea of the area’s traditional music, focus points were step dancing and dulcimer playing, in both of which the county was particularly rich. A short film of various of the Davies family step dancing in Cromer was followed by Dick Hewitt displaying his prowess and talking about his family’s involvement.
Finally, dulcimer virtuoso Billy Bennington showed his technique with various tunes. All wonderful material; it is a great shame that there is so little of such footage in existence. The Billy Bennington film led neatly into our own local dulcimer player and expert, Richard Blake, showcasing a few choice examples of instruments from his collection, with informative and occasionally humorous anecdotes about each, finishing off with a couple of tunes on Billy Bennington’s dulcimer. Next up was the more participatory step dancing slot: various practitioners of varying ages showed us what they could do and the session ended with quite a few people trying their hands with a dancing doll.
The finale was a “Tune-Up” style informal concert. Once again the Unthank Irregulars were on hand to lead through various tunes, augmented now by several other musicians. The dancers got up regularly and the instrumental stuff was interspersed with song from various people, despite the fact that the fairground had just started up on the green outside. Mercifully this intrusion constituted no more than a low hum of noise which we were able to ignore. The performers were too numerous to mention individually, but collectively they ensured a lively, varied and good-humoured finale.
And then it was over. It was gratifying to see so many local people turning out and much interest was shown in the musical traditions on display. Great too to have musical contributions from so many of them. Many thanks must go to Bec Jennings for her sterling work with the catering!
Next up is another event in Briston: a “Tune-Up” pub ‘do’ in The Three Horseshoes on Sunday 26th April, from 1.00 to 4.00 – the pub in which the aforementioned Dick Hewitt was landlord many years ago. We hope to see you there.
Chris Holderness – March 2026