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HIRING FAIR SONG REQUEST CLUB DETAILS NEWS MAGAZINE WIRELESS WAVES FEDERATION HARRY BOARDMAN LINKS OFF THE BEATEN TRACK HOME Other pages are available on this site - please click on HOME to see a complete listing |
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Monday Club History Page
This page is dedicated to the history of your club. Please send in a couple of paragraphs and pictures of your residents and regulars and I'll put the information on this page.
Red Bull Folk Club
Peter Hood from The Red Bull Folk Club at Stockport has sent an email in with their club's history:
Photo courtesy of Red Bull Folk Club Peter Hood First, the Bridge inn folk club on
Mondays is no more (ahhhh!) and is now the Red Bull Folk Club. Same Club, same residents new
venue. In about 1975 I had a band with a few friends and we played at The Fir Tree folk club in Reddish. We played lots of places but that one in particular fits the story. It was run by Vic Hassle and Geoff Monks amongst others, we only knew about five songs and one of those was a Les Barker poem based on 'Long distance information '. Les Barker turned up at the club to do a spot ....We were too mortified to sing the song but Pete Fidler, the crooner with the band grabbed Les in the bog and asked him if he'd mind if we did the song. Of course he said yes, the rest is history and a very blurry history. We sang the song did a few more gigs and 'Breakfast of Champions', the band, disappeared forever. Many years later, my baby Sister, Sarah Hood, asked if I would drop down to the Egerton Arms in Stockport to sing at a singers night run by Kieron Hartley and Clive. We went and my interest in playing folk music was re-kindled. Sarah and I got paid a couple of times and she went to sing more and eventually got on folk on two and sang with 'The Timekeepers' appearing on the Poynton Folk Club CD. My Brother-in-Law, Pete Goode, became the resident for the Monday singaround at Poynton Folk Club and I went down there and Pete encouraged me to play more. Kieron and Clive, and Vic Hassle became residents at around this point as well. A further club 'Grannies' was being run by Pete Roberts and Phil and Clare Allen, I also sang in there and met loads of great people, Dave Clarke, Dave and Angie , Jon Brinsdale, Lynn and Barrie Hardman and many others. At this point Poynton was run by Lynda Boyle on Saturdays with Dougie and Sue Price running the Monday singaround - Dougie and Sue left Poynton and asked Phil and Clare Allen and me, Peter Hood to run the Monday night. We had a fantastic run on the Monday nights, most of the South Manchester folk music people came to the club, Mark A'Hearne, Rick Carlton, Anne Yates, Angie , Pete Roberts , Vic Hassle, Geoff Monks, Dave and Lynda Wildblood, Ken , Lynda and Katherine Edwardes, Jim Embleton , Whiskery Bill, John Ashurst, Mary Asquith, Fran Early, Sarah Hood, Gail Hood, Pete Goode, Doug Price, Dave, John Greenhat, Amanda and Dave, Pete Farrow, Geoff, Dave McGowan and many others. Poynton, sadly closed for performance, still retains an excellent dance evening, but the folk singing moved through many phases until it came to the Red Bull Stockport. I was also involved as a resident with The White Swan Folk Club run by the legendary Annie Morris, along with Kieron and Mary Hartley and .....Vic Hassle. Annie fired my enthusiasm for folk music and when the White Swan folded, it left a void very hard to fill. By this point I had teamed up with Lynda Edwardes as a duo and the support Annie gave to all her residents leaves a stamp that's visible to anyone who played there. The Red Bull is the product of all those great clubs, people who love folk music and welcome it wherever it occurs. It's not my club but belongs to everyone in the Stockport area who enjoy being with people who play or listen to live folk music of any sort. The residents are all the people of the Stockport area who enjoy performing and listening to folk music and dance. You Know Who You Are.... thank you to you all Red Bull Folk Club Peter Hood, Lynda Edwardes (Publicity); Anne Yates (Treasurer); Jim Embleton, Ged Derby, Pete Farrow, Pete Roberts, John Ashurst (E-list..send your email for inclusion), and many more on the list above who are an essential part of the great Stockport Folk Music scene http://freespace.virgin.net/p.hood/folky.htm ----------
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Room At The Top Meets at The Red Lion, Newburgh Mondays at 8-45 What was to become The Room at the Top folk club started in the room upstairs at the Rigbye Arms at High Moor near Parbold and had the first night on Monday 12th February 2001. The room was cosy and friendly and a charge of £1 for entrance was made. Seth Holden was responsible for organising many of the performers who would come along and do their stuff in the earlier days. Because a fee was being paid for the use of the room, however, the club was barely keeping its head above water. The landlord was only interested in the fee for the room and the money over the bar and when a request to finish 15 minutes later at 11-15pm was refused and the fee for the room was raised it was time to find a new venue. That new venue was the Railway Hotel in Parbold village and the club was renamed "The Room at the Back" after a suggestion by a member of the audience. After a successful couple of years at the Railway, the brewery decided to move the builders in to "improve" the pub and as a result the "Room at the Back" became a room all around the bar with big screen TV for Monday night football along with the pool table. It was time to go pub hunting again for a pub with a separate room that we could have for nothing. As luck would have it, less than a mile up the road, the Red Lion in Newburgh had an upstairs function room that the landlady was willing to let us have for nothing on a Monday evening and so with a change of name to "Room at the Top", the club has remained there despite several changes of Landlord along the way - at one time there were four different landlords over a period of two months! Although the club is billed as a Folk Club, it's a loose term. We are acoustic/roots based but anything goes. We have people singing different types of songs or instrumentals - middle of the road, folk, pop; people who recite poetry and monologues; or give us readings from books - even a bit of Shakespeare! Basically anything. So if you think you'd like to come along and do your stuff (so long as it's not too rude!) or if you'd just like to watch other people perform then you will be made very welcome. First-timers get in free and get a raffle ticket and it's still only £1 for everybody else. Over the course of a year, the club has a subsidised Christmas meal (in January), An Easter Egg raffle where everyone gets an egg (at Easter of course), and a barbecue in the summer paid for out of club funds. The raffle usually consists of a bottle of wine and, depending on numbers in the room, a box of chocolates. Occasionally people will bring something to add to the raffle so although we don't have a membership as such, there is good value to be had for regular attendees. Whilst we are mainly a singers club and there are no regular guest nights, we have had a couple of nights where people have done an extended spot and one night there was a VERY FULL house for Tom Bliss on his final tour in July 2009. (Please don't ring for a booking because you won't get one. If the funds warrant it, the club will decide who they want to see as a guest) Sadly, a couple of our regular attenders have passed away over the last couple of years and as a mark of remembrance, we have made donations to their favoured charities. Steve Bannister was someone who got in touch after I met him many years ago at the Ormskirk Folk Club and it was a pleasure to see him and hear his songs again. John Littlewood was one of the original members of the club almost from week one and although he entertained us with readings from newspapers, classical poetry and limericks, he had a hidden life (from us anyway) as a champion amateur chess player. Anybody is welcome to come along either to perform or just sit and listen. We meet most Monday nights - the only nights we don't meet are Bank Holiday Mondays and either one or two weeks around Christmas depending which days Christmas and New Year fall. Further information about the Room at the Top can be obtained from Mark Dowding on 01257 464215 ----------------------- |
