Author: Joyce Hodge

The Club will restart on September 8th. Its been a long wait but at last we can meet again as a Club. Lots of you have kept in touch over the past eighteen months and like me just cant wait to get back to ‘normal’
The programme is
September 8th Haggerdash
September 22nd Hicks and Goulbourn
October 6th George Murphy and Frank Cassidy
October 20th Fil Campbell and Tom McFarland
November 3rd Mile Roses
November 17th The Lauren Collier Band
December 1st Tim Edey
December 15th Stephen and Pernille Quigg

Looking forward to seeing everyone again.

Hi there

To remind us all of happy nights at Irvine Folk Club Stephen and Pernille have put together a wee Christmas Folk Night for us. It went live a day of so ago – but is still available on YouTube to listen to at your convenience.
The link is:
https://youtu.be/5MZWylNFZEo

The book is proving very popular.
Sorry no mince pies!
Have a lovely Christmas.

Joyce

NOTE: This is a repost of an earlier news item where the link was faulty.

The book 50 Years of Marymass Folk Festival will be ready 7th December. If you haven’t yet ordered your copy please text me and I’ll keep one for you.
Pete has made an excellent job of it. Lets hope we can get back to some kind of normal next year. We’re all missing the club. Stay safe and well.

Tom will be cremated at a private service in Glasgow. Our thoughts are with his family at this sad time.

A tribute to Tom by his long time friend Willie Sinclair

It’s sometimes hard to remember when you first met someone who became a friend.

Tom Hamilton was a regular fixture at Irvine Folk Club for years. I’m pretty sure he was doing floor spots before I started as MC, and that was long long ago, at the Redburn Hotel. I can’t remember if he came to the sessions at the Hip Flask in Saltcoats. Probably. He could have walked there. He certainly came to the Tuesday sessions when they moved to the Marina Inn. He used to remind us, quietly, when it was the anniversary of the session’s move to Irvine because it was on his birthday.

His Folk Club floor spot contributions became a fixture and he made a point of singing songs that he had just learned. I reckon of all us floor singers Tom repeated the fewest songs. Not all of them made the transition to his set-list.

When he was comfortable and knew a song well his voice was powerful and his guitar strumming style confident. Maybe the pressure of being first to play on club nights inhibited his persona but in a band or a session he came out of his shell. He played with us at many Rumplefyke gigs, in ceilidh band and festival formats. His voice amplified and projected really well and fitted into the harmonies we were doing. Because he played left-handed he was always on my right side in the band. His guitar would get tangled up with mine if we were the other way round. I remember a charity fundraiser at the Volunteer Rooms, compered by Danny Kyle. The sound system was great and we had on-stage monitors. Rumplefyke were playing a set. Charlie was doing one of his rare solo voice and guitar pieces, The Lakes of Ponchartrain, away over to my left and I was playing a simple whistle melody accompaniment, because Mike McCann was absent. As the song went on I became aware of the distant sound of another whistle in my monitor but with limited sideways vision I could see no-one else playing. The others were all sitting back from their microphones. I was slightly spooked but carried on and afterwards asked if anyone else had heard it? Nobody had. Years later I was retelling the story. With a grin, Tom said “Oh, that was me, whistling to myself”……. He and I had a private laugh when a session would play the set of hornpipes that included “Harvest Home”. There’s a run of notes that’s easier for the fiddle than the mandolin and I would always mess it up or simplify it and Tom would catch my eye and smile. Nobody else noticed, but he did. In a session he would sit with his big heavy songbook on the table and flick through it for inspiration, but there wasn’t any point in trying to guess what he would sing next because when he stopped turning the pages and reached for his guitar that just meant he had decided, on the basis of a song that had caught his eye. It might be The Leaving of Liverpool on the page but he would sing a Beatles song instead. We eventually learned not to pay any attention to the page!

For the past several years Tom and I would set up in a corner at the Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue Hospital’s open day in June, and busk. Sometimes we had help: Dick and Maureen, Dawn, Ann and Stevie, my old pal Peter, but several times it was just the two of us for 3-4 hours. It’s hard work but we looked forward to it. This year it would have been the 14^th of June but was cancelled, of course. I was remembering our previous jaunts not realising that Tom was ill.

Not all of his songs were cheerful, but that’s Folksongs for you, and sometimes the newest ones were a bit creaky but we’ve all been a bit shaky trying out songs for the first time.

My best memories of Tom will be his sneaky, cheeky, sly wee smile in a session and a photograph of him playing a gig at a Festival in Australia surrounded by PA gear and grinning from ear to ear.

I’ll miss him and Irvine Folk Club has lost a stalwart.

I am sorry to have to intimate the sudden death yesterday of Tom Hamilton. Tom has been a member of the Folk Club for more years than we can remember and he will be missed. Our thoughts are with his family.

Date changed to Thursday (tomorrow) BBC Scotland (Channel 9) 8.30pm

Irvine Folk Club are very proud that this poem was written by Willie Sinclair , one of our members. (No not Willie the Vet – Willie, Archie Comrie’s pal) Dennis Lawson will read it on BBC Scotland TV on Friday night 24th April at 10.30pm

Coronavirus Poem by Willie Sinclair

Twa months ago, we didna ken

yer name or ocht aboot ye.

But lots of things have changed since then

I really must salute ye

Yer spreading rate is quite intense.

Yer feeding like a gannet

Disruption caused,  is so immense

Ye’ve shaken oor wee planet

Corona used tae be a beer.

They garnished it wae limes.

But noo its filled us awe wae fear.

These days are scary times.

Nae shakin hawns, or peckin lips.

It’s whit they awe advise

But scrub them weel richt tae the tips.

That’s how we’ll awe survive.

Just stay inside the hoose ye bide.

Nae sneakin oot for strolls.

Just check the lavvy every hoor

and stock-take your loo rolls.

Oor holidays have been pit aff

Noo that’s the Jet 2 patter

Pit oan yer thermals, have a laugh

and paddle ‘doon the waater’

Canary isles, no for a while.

Nae need for suntan cream.

and awe because o this wee bug

we ken tae be …19

The boredom surely will set in.

But have a read, or doodle.

or plan yer menu for the month

wi 95 pot noodles.

So dinny think ye’ll wipe us oot.

Aye true, a few have died.

Bubonic, Bird Flu and TB.

They came, they left, they tried.

Ye might be gallus noo ma freen

As ye jump fae cup tae cup.

But when we get oor vaccine made.

Yer number will be up.

Due to the Coronavirus the 53rd Marymass Folk Festival has unfortunately been cancelled.

Club Nights at Irvine Folk Club have been suspended until the end of May. This decision was made in an effort to limit the spread of the Coronavirus. The next scheduled Club Night was Wednesday 25th March when the guest was to be Dan McKinnon from Canada. This will now NOT take place. All information on Irvine Folk Club is available at www.irvinefolkclub.org.u