Lesley Neal is a singer and ukulele player from Suffolk. She sings with local group The Strumpets and regularly attends sessions, U3A events and is the percussionist for Dance Folkus monthly ceilidh club in Woodbridge.
NB: These recordings were made in August 2020 during the COVID-19 period. They were undertaken with social distancing measures in place according to government guidelines.
An interview summary can be downloaded above.
Interview Keywords: Folk music, college, Bognor Regis, folk club, singing, contemporary folk songs, traditional songs, Leonard Cohen, social music, sessions, round the rooms, Harbour Inn, Southwold, U3A, Robert Neal, ukulele, The Strumpets, local music, music hall, entertaining, seasonal songs, Nobody Loves a Fairy When she’s Forty, Christmas, fancy dress, chorus.
- Title: Now I Have to Call Him Father
- Performer: Lesley Neal
- Date recorded: 6.8.2020
- Location: Martlesham, Suffolk
- Recorded by: Megan Wisdom
- Composer: Charles Collins and Fred Godfrey
- Roud No: 25856
- Notes: Music hall song written in 1908, famously sung by Vesta Victoria.
- Title: All Things are Quite Silent
- Performer: Lesley Neal
- Date recorded: 6.8.2020
- Location: Martlesham, Suffolk
- Recorded by: Megan Wisdom
- Roud No: 2532
- Notes: A press-gang song collected only once in Britain, by Ralph Vaughan Williams from Ted Baines in Lower Beeding, Sussex and featured in The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. See https://mainlynorfolk.info/louis.killen/songs/allthingsarequitesilent.html.
- Title: Grace Darling (He Calls me his Own Grace Darling)
- Performer: Lesley Neal
- Date recorded: 6.8.2020
- Location: Martlesham, Suffolk
- Recorded by: Megan Wisdom
- Composer: Lawrence Barclay (1898)
- Notes: Another Vesta Victoria favourite.