Singing for Saint George

On April 19th, a week before St George's Day, a large group of us met at The George Inn in St Briavels for a premature celebration of England's patron saint. The event had been organised by my friend Janice and I'm grateful to her both for inviting me and sending me these photos.

Janice provided songbooks from which we could all sing and play, and several of us were also ready to sing solos... and what talent there was in The George that night. 

I'd expected that so patriotic an occasion would feature plenty of songs in praise of England and the English. Well, we started with a nice English one (The Leaving of Liverpool, I think it was) but then our eclectic tastes took us to America and Ireland, before coming back to England again.

By the middle of the evening, one important land that hadn't had a song was my beloved Cornwall, so I remedied the omission with my own rendition of Lamorna. Janice knew it from previous Angie performances and we had no difficulty getting everyone joining in the 'wet, wet wet' of the chorus. 

'Twas down in Albert Square,
I never shall forget,
her eyes they shone like diamonds
and the evening it was wet, wet, wet.
Her hair hung down in curls,
she was a charming rover,
and we rode all night in the pale moonlight
away down to Lamorna.

Hats off to them all. I've felt neither prouder nor wet, wet, wetter since leaving Cornwall!

Friends will know that I've grown rather despondent of late with my ukulele experience. Gatherings with my regular ukulele group, the wonderful Ukes uv Azzard, have long been important to me but there was something missing. I now realise what it was.

This was the first time that I'd played and sung solo since the Covid pandemic. Now there's every indication that the interminable Covid Winter is behind us and the joy of singing with uke-playing friends has truly returned.