October 19, 2008
A massive thank you to all that came to the ceilidh and merrily danced the night away supporting the charity WaterAid as part of the Big National Ceilidh day event. We all had a fab time and really enjoyed the night!
We had 134 (give or take 1 or 2) people dancing at 10pm to the Circassian Circle dance and the night raised £670 for WaterAid!!! Here are a few photos of the night and at BBC Radio Humberside on the Saturday morning promoting the event…
September 13, 2008
This is unashamed advertising for our fund raising community charity ceilidh at
Please use the ’Contact us‘ page for tickets
Tickets £5 each, no bar so bring your own drinks/booze (cups) and nibbles
Everyone welcome!
August 22, 2008
Some of us Hull and North Lincs lot did Whitby Folk Festival sessions on Thursday. We got there at about 10.30am and settled down at a cafe at the end of the north cliff area in the town, drank lots of tea, ate some sausage, eggs and beans brunch then played on our instruments.
Made John Kirkpatrick’s session in the Middle Earth Pub early afternoon and the 422 session later in the day at the same pub. Both sessions were different and both great. The pub was full but that didn’t detract from the session - then that’s easy for me to say as I had a seat!
Some of us Hull lot off to Shrewsbury Folk Festival now as I blog - and no doubt will have a good time there.
August 15, 2008
As a ceilidh band we take rehearsing very seriously - unless the weather is nice and there’s a swing ball tournament to be had.
So todays rehearsal went well, got covered what we needed to and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden… turns out Liz, the piper, or “Whistling Wainright”, as her Swingball name is, has a killer instinct to win.
“Scrapey Sean” (his Swingball name - it was all getting a bit silly at this point!), the violin player, bore the brunt of Liz’s brutal swingball skills and lost miserably.
However “Mart the Bang”, percussionist, beat “Whistling Wainright” backhand - so she melted into a pile of goo. Losing is not an option for Liz.
Hey ho, a good days work done by all 
July 2, 2008
June 25, 2008
We did a workshop/session on French and early music on Sunday morning at Beverley Folk Festival. We had recorders, accordion, percussion and fiddle with Quentin on gurdy and pipes and me on shawm, we ran through Bear Dance, Branle l’Offical and the old favourite Horses Brawl then we did some French bourrées, a Morvan bourrée and Tricotada.
The session was full and we hopefully passed on some ideas and new tunes to those that went.
To finish with, John aired one of his own compositions (composed in France) and people spontaneously got up to dance - always a sign of a good tune!
June 14, 2008
We did a ceilidh barn dance, in a barn, last Saturday night. Luckily the weather was kind and the eveing went well with, we think at one point, over 120 dancers on the floor for the dance the ‘Seige of Ennis’.
This dance is the Gay Gordons with Liz piping.
June 6, 2008
June 6, 2008
We did a ceilidh at Cave Castle on Wednesday night. It was Hull University’s Drama Department’s end of year do to see the final year students off. They had a “Grafter’s” award ceremony, which finished just after 10pm then we were due to play… only then, tradition has it, that all the men go to the lake in the grounds of Cave Castle for a cigar. So off they toddled leaving us with a load of women on the dance floor with no male partners to dance with.
After 20 minutes (now after 10.30pm) we decided for drastic action. Liz got her pipes out and Janet and I, armed with darabouka and tambourine, went to pipe the boys back up to the dance floor.
This all worked very well. Got to the 70ish lads near the lake, Liz started piping and we started drumming and sure enough they started to follow. About half way up the hill to the castle we realised no one was following us. We looked back, only to see two lines of men ready to charge at each other… then followed the Braveheart re-enactment.
A great roar ensued and the two battle lines ran at each other, Liz kept piping and we kept drumming and the two sides clashed. After skirmishing for a few minutes they dusted their tux’s down and proceeded to be piped up to the castle and on to the dance floor. What a laugh!
May 18, 2008
We did a ceilidh yesterday near York in a village hall in Sutton upon Derwent, a really lovely setting and atmosphere and we all very much enjoyed it as did the wedding guests.
Liz really “did one” on the bagpipes! - she played for half an hour, really enjoyable (not only because it meant most of the band had some time off) but she really gets into the spirit and gets everyone jollying up there. Quentin and Martin playing along on the djembe and darabouka made it hard for anyone not to clap along or dance!
Helen’s got some photo’s - will post them up soon.
