D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
July 2009
Bayuo Seco's Rolling Postcard
Page: 2Village halls are an important part of each community. We played one in West Sussex that had no clear deed or papers on when it was built. It is maintained by and available to the community, and all sorts of important events happen there. It has perfect acoustics and seats about 100. There's a wooden floor ideal for dancing, a small stage and a kitchen. The night we played there, people brought along their own drinks and snacks. One of the halls we played on the Welsh border was quite small, and the outside was clad in corrugated tin painted dark green. Apparently these "tin tabernacles," as they are known, were built from kits in the late 1940s. They were used for churches and meeting places. We had a very large and enthusiastic audience of all ages, who were happy to join in on the New Mexican broom dance and the Baile de los Panos, and holler out Gritos during "Estas Lindas Flores."
We played in the foyer of the Royal National Theatre in London on the south bank of the Thames. The concerts there are free to the public and happen five to six days a week from 5:45-7:15 p.m. It isn't only the theater-going crowd, but a lot of Londoners who know about this nice venue. And since all the English people older than 60 have free local bus passes, a lot of people use this perk to the max. We have friends who make their way around the country visiting friends, using the local buses to get from place to place.
Gas is still very expensive, though cheaper than last year, but one tank lasts us a long time. We can go up to 900 kilometers on a tank, and sometimes that lasts a week or so. In our country it is "how many tanks to get to the gig," and here it is "how many gigs can we get to on one tank?" The diesel cost .98-1.03 pounds per liter. The euro is about 10% lower than the pound, and the gas cost is also little bit cheaper in euros per liter. In eight weeks we bought 300 liters of petrol to go 7,500 kilometers, and spent the equivalent of about $750. Cars over here get good gas mileage. For instance, why does a diesel Ford Escort get up to 55 miles per gallon over here? The engine is a bit smaller, but plenty powerful nonetheless.
At the Broadstairs Festival in Kent, 17 years ago, we met some people who were to become very important to us. Brian and Christine Kell had been running the Straw Bear Festival in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, since 1978. Straw Bear Festival is based on an old Fenland tradition. The local farmers paid off their workers before Christmas. This meant they would have no more work (or pay) until they were hired once more, usually on the Monday after Twelfth Night (Plough Monday). Times were hard and they needed money, so they would dress one man in straw, and the rest would blacken their faces as a disguise. Off around the town they would go with their "dancing bear," begging for money to provide them all with the three "Bs" — beef, beer and 'baccy!
These days, two bears made of straw but powered by a person, one large and one small, dance throughout the town, followed by a band of local people playing the music, and thousands of adoring spectators from near and very far. As many as 25 sides of Morris or Mollie teams dance outside the pubs all day. We have been lucky to play at this festival three times; our song "Waltzing with Bears" figures in heavily here. And now there is a German bear and all his entourage who join in each year.
Bird songs — the day starts out with birdsongs no matter where you are. In Whittlesey it is the blackbird that gives us a preview of the day to come with his strikingly tuneful melody — as early as 3 a.m. Later on, the lovely blue tits, thrushes, finches, robins and finally the turtledoves take over with their monotonous cooing, which says to me, "getupnow, getupnow, getupnow." In Silver City, we hear the curved-bill thrasher first. As we drive along, we often see magpies. Legend has it that you must say, "Good morning, Captain, and how's the missus?" when you see a magpie. Lots of theories on this one, but it is perhaps a question of respect and luck for the day.
On Whitmonday, the last Monday in May, we got to return to an annual Morris-dancing event in a small town called Bampton in the Bush, west of Oxford. This has been going on for hundreds of years. The three teams dance all day around the town, in large gardens of manor houses, outside pubs in the streets, and in the churchyards and courtyards. It is amazing to see this kind of tradition being carried on. The crowd follows along and cheers them on. For us it is a great way to see gorgeous gardens. It is quite a physical event for the dancers because the surfaces they dance on change from spongy lawns to rough paving stones and hard concrete. The dancers are all dressed in white with bells tied to their legs and flowers decorating their straw hats. Of course, a lot of beer is consumed all day, and the Sunday and Monday night pub sessions are wonderful. This is the place to hear proper English music on the melodeon and fiddle.
We were near the end of our month's tour of England. We made a big loop up to Yorkshire to play in a folk club near Ripponden. The rhododendrons and azaleas were all in bloom. The woodsy hills and dales were jumping in vivid purples, oranges and pinks — a nice treat for the eyes on a rainy day. The next day we played in Liverpool at the World Museum, and then we went all the way south to the Dorset coast near the Isle of Wight. There we stopped in a little village called Worth Matravers, where there is a quaint pub called The Square and the Compass, a tiny place that has been run by the Newman family for more than 100 years. Large fossils that have been found along the coast decorate all the windowsills and fireplace mantles. The cider is artisan-made with local fruit.
It has been a good month of music and friends. Soon we will move on to France.
What do we like about England? Well, the cheeses — aged Berkwell or a Kelsey Lane soft ewe's milk cheese from the west midlands, Ribbledale (a goat cheese) from Lancashire, Swalesdale from Yorkshire, the seriously sharp cheddars from Somerset, Shropshire blues and Stiltons, Gevrik goat from Cornwall, and Lincolnshire Poacher. We like Hobnobs — the knobbly, nutty, oat-y biscuits, an unusual snack if spread with St. Agur blue cheese and paired with a sliced Braeburn apple. We like how, instead of saying "hello," the first thing people here say is, "You all right then?" We like the local pear ciders on draft in the pubs, bacon and mushroom sandwiches, baby new potatoes from Jersey, minted peas, Rachel's Organic Yogurt from Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast, Cornish pasties and, most of all, the people. Our friends are all wonderful folks.
Seven weeks had flown by and we returned to France. We left Stroud, near Bath, at 9 a.m., went east on the M4, M25 and M20, and caught the 2 p.m. ferry to Calais. We were in the countryside, northeast of Rouen, by 6:30 p.m., eating saucisson and olives in the garden of a friend who is also a fiddler and violin maker.
France seems so large after England. The towns are much farther apart, the roads much less crowded, and the food style so very different. We continued south the next day to Poitiers on the autoroute, spending almost 40 euros for the convenience of a good fast road with no roundabouts or stoplights. Our next stop was at another friend's house so that Ken could make a one-row diatonic accordeon. We would stay for six days.