November - A week earlier than usual due to town hall booking problems, the final ceilidh of the year was the long anticipated Crook Tumbling Tom were celebrating 40 years of playing - see our early history here - and to mark the occasion the band With two singing spots from the Revellers, and one from Crook Morris, also celebrating 40 years, it was another excellent Crook Morris said afterwards - We had a fantastic Christmas ceilidh on Saturday evening celebrating 40 years of Crook Morris as well as 40 years of the brilliant Tumbling Tom Big Band Below are the band getting the evening underway with Les's song Rubydoo. |
|
![]() |
|
Below, the band are playing their version of the Cliff Hornpipe for the dance written by Les called Tumbling Tom's Tonic. |
|
Crook Morris |
|
![]() |
|
The Revellers singing in one of their two spots. |
|
![]() |
Our sound man Pete Ord |
Crook Morris with their bithday cake |
![]() |
October - The Castle Green Hotel is a venue that we've played in many times, and this time was to help Becky and Ben celebrate their wedding. A very enthusiastic crowd, there were no problems in filling the dance floor. Some very creative dancing to one of Fiona's dances can be seen here Afterwards, Becky said - It was absolutely fantastic, you were wonderful. Everyone has been raving to me about how much fun they had dancing! Thank you for such a marvellous evening. Warm regards, Becky. |
|
September - The band are really looking forward to playing at the Christmas ceilidh, and below is the poster that Martyn has sent out. It's the bands 40th year of playing, so it should be quite a celebration with lots of 40 related tunes, dances, and songs. Get your ticket soon as it could be a sell out with all the pent-up demand. |
|
![]() |
|
We made a return visit to Leighton Hall to help Nina and her husband celebrate their wedding anniversary. As Steve couldn't make it, we had our good friend Norman Bell along to deputise. It was great to be playing again after the pandemic interlude, and we had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Thanks Nina. The photo on the right shows Nina and her husband lining up in the centre of a set. |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
June - We're now into June, and starting to accept new bookings at last, mainly weddings.
We're starting to look forward to the Christmas ceilidh which this year will be slightly earlier than usual on November 27th. Will it go ahead? Will people feel confident enough? Only time will tell. |
|
Here we are with the presenter Petroc Trelawny | |
2020 - Hugh - I normally help to organise with Steve a monthly music session in Kendal at the Oddfellows Arms, playing English and continental music, but of course that hasn't happened since lockdown. In its place, I've been helping to organise and take part in a fortnightly music session using Zoom. Nowhere near as good as a 'live' session, but good for keeping fingers in trim and keeping in contact with other musicians. One advantage is that we can see and hear friends Ron and Barbara from the USA. Steve - With no ceilidhs this year (and no Womad Festival!) I’ve been keeping up my musical interests by taking part in the fortnightly ‘virtual Oddfellows’ music sessions organised by Hugh. I’ve been playing melodeon more than guitar whilst the band is unable to get out and play. In particular I try to post the melodeon.net Tune of the Month and Theme of the Month to my YouTube channel each month. Fiona - Lockdown Musings.
Making the most of all musical opportunities in this strange year has involved enjoying a variety of internet workshops and sessions backed up by listening to various music genres streamed from festivals and house concerts. The occasional shared, live sessions have mostly been Swedish music for us – including a wonderful blanket swathed 3 hours of playing up in Dumfries in a friend’s garden, a very happy birthday afternoon in a Sedbergh garden and a wonderful musical picnic in a forest car park with a friend from Leeds! Before this second lockdown we also enjoyed 2 lovely cosy Irish/Swedish sessions in a friend’s kitchen, helping him celebrate his 90th birthday. My husband Pete has been very busy in his workshop completing 2 silverbas nyckelharpas and making one 4-row and two 3-row nyckelharpas. Les - Apart from missing playing with Tumbling Tom, I’m also missing all my other musical activities, and trying to make the best of it. Gone is my regular Tuesday night session at the Hope & Anchor, but I’ve managed to keep going other activities. The Furness Tradition Folk Festival that I help organise was cancelled in it’s live form, but we went ahead with a virtual festival featuring “live” Zoom concerts, including storytelling, singing, dance, music, and some workshops for adults and children. It was very successful, and as the current situation won't ease for some time, we decided to continue with monthly Zoom concerts (see furnesstradition.org.uk for details). Also, we made a music video in order to show our support for the key workers in our community (https://youtu.be/hyd4SLfPpuk).
A radio station in New Zealand, Radio Kidnappers, saw our CD on this web site, and made enquiries to us. They're now featuring tracks from it regularly on their weekly show - Folk on Sunday and Kidnappers Ceilidh, Radio Kidnappers 1431AM & 104.7FM). See - http://www.radiokidnappers.org.nz/Programmes/Details.aspx?PID=0aed8b81-7438-4da5-b2f9-d5dfc3ef3447
|
|
|