40th Anniversary Celebrations

 Woolston Folk Club opened on Sunday 19th October 1986 with the Portsmouth Shantymen as our guest artistes. It was then a weekly club.

We have decided to celebrate our 40th anniversary over two nights. The second night will be on 25th October with the same guests who performed at the club on our opening night, the Portsmouth Shantymen. Quite an achievement as both the club and the first night guests are still existing 40 years on, albeit that in both cases some of the personnel have changed.

The first celebration on 18th October will be a more informal occasion when we hope that many old and new faces will come to help us celebrate. We thought it would be great if people were to come along and share their memories/stories about the club over the years and maybe sing a song they were singing when they first arrived at the club. There were many hilarious moments so it should be a good fun evening. One of the funniest moments for me was when the late Stephie Cox/Billington came along to a Christmas party, when people were encouraged to do a funny sketch or showpiece, and hers was a demonstration of how to make a Christmas cake. I’ll tell you about it on 18th October. I still find myself laughing at the memory of it. Please bring a few nibbles to add to my meagre offerings.

The club has operated from the New Bridge Inn and the Obelisk in Woolston, then the Prince Consort and the Grange in Netley until we finally came to rest at the Bursledon Village Hall about 15 (?) years ago.

Apart from the regular weekly meets, we also had events like the annual summer barbecues, curry and ceilidh nights, Xmas parties with short pantos and sketches, camping weekends and a weekend exchange visit to France with their version of a folk club (a bagpipe band!) I don’t think we were quite what they expected.

Although we were mainly a sing around and ‘anything goes’ club we also had monthly guest nights. Guests included Show of Hands, Phil Beer, Roy Bailey, Harvey Andrews, Vin Garbutt, Maddy Prior, Ashley Hutchings and the Rainbow Chasers, to name but a few.

We also had collaborations with the Fo’c’sle Folk Club with guest nights on the S.S. Shieldhall, and the Solent Folk Festival held at the Woolston Community Centre was another joint venture with the Fo’c’sle.

We have lost many of our regulars over the 40 years including George King, Martin Lee, Martin Heys , Martin Kennard, Clive Cox, Stephie Cox/Billington, Roy Eccles, Geoff King, Stephen Dean, Fran Noon, Mo Ward, and, of course my own very dear Sam. He didn’t appear at the club until 1989 but became joint organiser and worked incredibly hard for the club. He died 3 years ago and that’s when the club ceased to meet weekly and it became ‘bring your own’ because Sam was no longer there to stock and run the bar or cook any curries etc.

Hopefully I have triggered quite a few memories here so do come along in October to share them with us.

Take care folks, and happy folkin’
Sandy (SATYANADHAN) x