Despite the absence of several regulars, there was decent turnout a The Prince Albert for Glen’s final visit before heading south-west again. Glen herself hadn’t intended to sing this evening, but couldn’t resist it after Stuart had suggested that we might be able to fill a whole evening with versions of Daddy Fox. Stuart sang it to a different tune than we usually hear from Dick. Glen naturally responded with a version to a further different tune and later added Ploughboy Lads.

Perhaps for the first time, we had three songs from Stuart – his other two being There Was an Old Woman Who Swalled a Fly and Cyril Tawney’s Ballad of Sammy’s Bar. Delia’s songs were Johnny Todd and Soldier, Soldier.

All the above were unaccompanied, as were Dick’s Fair Rosamund, Turkish Men of War and The Card Song (Here’s To You Tom Brown) and Paul Simon’s Sound of Silence from John C.

Martin B had started with a lesser-known Paul Simon song – Wednesday Morning 3am and continued later with Robert Johnson’s Malted Milk. He finished the evening with the lovely You’ve Got a Friend by Carole King (via James Taylor), with almost everyone singing along and seeming to know all the words.

In Karen and Roger’s absence, Rosie and I plan to play some atypical songs at The Bottom Line gig at The Dog & Badger on Tuesday and gave outings (with varying degrees of success) this evening to The Ole Devil Called Love, Dream a Little Dream and Almaz.

On the pop song theme, David and Simon duetted on XTC’s Generals and Majors, which is probably not in any collection of folk songs from the Upper Thames (or Swindon). Their other songs were David’s own fine Islands of Steel and Steve Knightley’s Widdecombe Fair.

Andy took some time out from pulling together the music for Monday’s Beer Festival at the Crowne Plaza to join Richard for Lizzie Lindsay, You Are My Moonshine and the saucy Ball of Yarn, coupled with The Proudlock Hornpipe.

Naturally, we had some tunes too, notably from Paul, whom we hadn’t seen for a while. He started with Uncle’s Jig and St Lawrence Jig and later played Ty Coch (which is apparently Welsh for Red House) and the Polish Redower Polka. I was disappointed that Ty Coch was a polka rather than a slow blues.

Paul also joined in heartily with The Kerry Polkas, which was led by Rosie and me. We also played reels The Silver Spear and Sally Gardens.

Simon’s joining Roger to play for Herbaceous Border at Chippenham this weekend. As Simon gave us Upton Stick Dance this evening, I assume this will be part of the repertoire.

We’ll be at The Belle Vue in Wycombe on Wednesday 2ndJune. I hope we have a good a session there as we had last time.

Meanwhile, The Bottom Line will be down to three (Rosie, Steve, Alan) for the regular ‘first Tuesday’ gig at The Dog & Badger. We will be joined by The August List (Martin & Kerraleigh), so do try to come along to give them your support.