We were delighted to be asked by the Traditional Song Forum (TSF) to jointly host their Spring Conference in the heart of East Anglia.

The aim was to have a couple of talks relevant to the region’s song…it turned out that all 8 talks had links to people, songs and places across the region.

Steve Roud, Chair of the TSF, welcomed speakers and guests to the day and our first talk of the day was from EATMT founder and now Patron, Katie Howson who introduced us to the songs of Suffolk musician Fred Whiting. Katie’s talk was a wonderful mix of sound files, photographs, maps and personal memories and stories.

Our second talk from local musician, researcher and EATMT supporter Alan Helsdon introduced our audience to the EATMT’s collection on Norfolk singer Walter Pardon.

Called the Carroll & Mackenzie Archive (because they both kindly donated their Walter Pardon collection to EATMT in 2021) we are delighted to have in our archives digital recordings (of singing and talking) made by Jim and Pat, as well as Peter & Helen Leader, Peter Bellamy, Cliff Godbold, Mike Yates, Roy Palmer and Walter’s own recordings. We were also in receipt of some physical archives such as Walter’s song books, books about Knapton village, personal belongings (such as two one row melodeons) and family memorabilia – war medals, photographs etc and a very small selection of these were on show to investigate on the day.

The talk took us into this archive as well as into Walter’s life. Sadly Alan wasn’t able to join us in person on the day but it was like he was in the room as he had organised his talk as an audio file and sent us a selection of photographs.

A half hour coffee break allowed people to top up the caffeine and sugar levels, look at one of Walter’s Song notebooks and browse around the EATMT, TSF and Veteran Stalls and the Blaxhall Ship exhibition.

Martin Nail, British Library librarian, musician and now also involved with cataloguing and indexing for the Vaughan Williams’ Memorial Library, selected just one of the songs held in our archive on Walter – Down by the Dark Arches for his talk. Martin took us through his research processes in looking at the history of this one song – words, place, other versions of the song and Broadsides relating to it.

Last stop before lunch was an interview led by Suffolk based singer and EATMT volunteer (and Friends’ Administrator) Shirley Harry and local author Robert Ashton who joined us to discuss his brand new book Where are the Fellows who Cut the Hay a modern, updated version of local George Ewart Evan’s 1950s book Ask the Fellows who Cut the Hay. Evans creates in his book a portrait of village life in rural Blaxhall recording the memories of the folk who remembered (pre mechanisation) 19th century farming, landscape, craft, tales and traditions. Traditional Song was part of those memories and still evident in the Ship when then Blaxhall resident, Ewart-Evans wrote his book. Robert Ashton was gifted a copy of this book aged 14 years and since then has had a fascination of his writings and the area. This book is an ode to rural life and traditions and looks at how life continues to ebb and flow in this rural area.*

A lunch break gave the opportunity for another leg stretch, the visit to local eateries, the purchasing of more books (including Robert’s) and CDs and we were delighted to have Trustee Eammon Andrews lead a lunchtime sing. We were treated to songs from Eammon, Paul Gill, Tracey Wisdom, Chris Holderness, Katie Howson, Judy Andrews, Penny Doe, Steve Atkinson and Shirley Harry.

Hazel Marsh from UEA introduced the audience to a project which has looked at raising the profile and improving the visibility and accessibility of the Romani and Traveller Collections housed at EFDSS and the Vaughan Williams’ Memorial Library which are based around the folk songs collected from Gypsies and Travellers. The influences of 19th Century Norfolk writer George Borrow had been researched and the project has worked closely with Strumpshaw Tree Fair. To coincide with this project there has been the release of 2 volumes of Traditional songs (A Secret Stream) collected from English Gypsies (selected by Nick Dow, with notes by Steve Gardham and musical notation by Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne).

Chris Holderness is a Norfolk based historian, researcher and musician. Chris’s talk focused on fellow researcher and collector Des Miller who died earlier in the year. Chris and Des worked on Rig-a-Jig-Jig: Norfolk Music History Project from 2004 and over the following decade. Chris shared his memories and collecting experiences working with Des on this project and spoke about the subsequent articles that were written for Musical Traditions. Chris’s research archives from this project have been passed on to EATMT in the last couple of years and they are available to view in person. An index to this archive can be viewed HERE.

Folk Song Collector E J Moeran was the subject of researcher Chris Heppa who was next to present his talk. E J Moeran collected folk song in Norfolk, a county of his roots and where he spent several years. He is described as an “assiduous collector”. Chris discussed Moeran’s folk song collecting, his life pre and post war, his life style and his chosen friendships and how these affected his compositions.

There was then a final opportunity to stretch legs, top up on tea and cake and make final purchases before our final talk on the day Keeping the Ship Afloat took place. FolkEast director John Marshall-Potter and once resident of The Blaxhall Ship Simon Saunders (Simon grew up in the pub with his landlord and lady parents).

Triggered by a chance find of musician Ruth Askew’s melodeon in a local Car Boot Sale, John started on a quest to look at the history of singing in the Blaxhall Ship, but the state of flux that the county has seen in recent month in East Suffolk’s Folk Singing pubs, the quest, which has gathered momentum with various contributions of information and artefacts, has also turned into a huge effort to save its existence*.

Once the main proceedings of the day were over, a small number of people headed to The Pallet Bar in Fox Yard in Stowmarket where manager Eilish had reserved upstairs for a potential music session. Songs and tunes were shared with Katie Howson, George and Eileen Monger, Tracey Wisdom, Eammon and Judy Andrews, Paul Gill and Barbara Snape. Beautiful sounds drifting out of the Pallet Bar must have woken up the Nightingales that were reported singing in Stowmarket that evening.

We are grateful to Steve Roud and Martin Graebe from the TSF for guiding EATMT through the whole process, to our 8 wonderful speakers that covered some really fascinating topics presented in a variety of ways, to our singers who sung us a song each during the lunch hour and to our volunteers including Jake who filmed the proceedings and who will in due course present a final edited copy to TSF for member viewing, Mark who guided us with the technical side of the day and to Eliza for keeping everyone fed and watered. The Walnut pub welcomed singers on the Friday night for which we are grateful.

*Robert Ashton’s book was officially launch in Blaxhall Village Hall the following day which also incorporated a Blue Plaque unveiling for George Ewart-Evans. The villagers came out in force (as did several attendees from the Feast in the East conference), they produced a delicious spread to eat after the showing of three key films – all of them featuring traditional song at the Blaxhall Ship from the 1950s. A fitting end to a weekend dedicated to traditional song in East Anglia.

Visit the page detailing the event’s proceedings which includes a full programme of the day HERE