Anchor Springs Black Pearl Porter

This traditional version of the style, 5.2% ABV, 1062° OG, began its brewery life with a working name of Abyss but as Black Pearl made its first public appearance at the October 2011 Worthing Beer Festival, where it proved to be one of the most popular local beers on the bar. Black Pearl was subsequently awarded joint 3rd Beer of the Festival at the Sussex Beer and Cider Festival, Hove, in March 2012. It is currently the brewery’s only seasonal beer and available from October to March.

Black Pearl is brewed with Pale, Crystal, Amber and Chocolate malt, with Target hops for bitterness, EKG for flavour and Challenger for aroma. Cinnamon sticks are added to the copper during the boil. This dark, rich beer reveals a tawny-red hue when held to the light. A sweet vinous nose has hints of Madeira; the taste is sweet at the start but well-balanced between creamy chocolate and dry biscuit malt; the mouthfeel is smooth and full-bodied. A complex range of flavours include liquorice, toffee, dark fruits and a hint of cinnamon and coffee, leading to a pleasant bitter end note.

Fuller’s Traitors’ Gate

Traitors’ Gate is brand-new “rich ruby red ale” from Fuller’s. Named after the entrance to the Tower of London, it is being trialled as a limited edition brew in a selected number of Fuller’s houses. I found it in the Golden Eagle, Delamare Road, Southsea, an outlet for the Sussex Drinker and a new entry in the 2013 CAMRA Good Beer Guide.

Given a feedback form to fill in, I wrote something along the following lines. Outstanding fruit on the nose with citrus notes; full-bodied and bursting with red berry flavours, slightly sweet, but well balanced with biscuit malt and a slightly astringent zesty but gentle hop finish. I ventured the opinion that there is a need for this fruity red ale at 4.5% in the Fuller’s range.

Fuller’s Past Masters – Old Burton Extra

I spent last Saturday delivering the winter issue of the Sussex Drinker to pubs in Portsmouth & Southsea. Alighting at Portsmouth Harbour railway station, one of my first calls was to the famous Still & West Country House, a Fuller’s house now back in the Good Beer Guide after a period of absence.

I was pleased to see a range of Fuller’s speciality bottled beers on sale - Vintage Ale, Brewer’s Reserve and the third in Fuller’s Past Masters series, Old Burton Extra.

As beer writer Martyn Cornell makes clear, Burton Ale was not a bitter IPA as one might suppose, but a slightly stronger, darker and sweeter beer than the pale ales first made famous by that Staffordshire brewing town before its name become synonymous with India Pale Ale. A Burton remained a popular choice in pubs in the immediate period after the Second World War but today it is a virtually forgotten style – Gone for a Burton, as they say. More recent beers brewed in the Burton tradition no longer go by that name.

This Fuller’s Old Burton was recreated from an authentic recipe of Thursday 10th September 1931 that used Pale Ale and Crystal malt, maize and special brewing syrup; hops were Fuggles and Goldings, both in the copper and for dry hopping. My bottle cost £4.85; the contents poured a clear amber-brown; I sat and sipped in contemplation, looking out of the pub windows over the harbour towards Gosport, watching the ferries sail by.

This is very recognisably a Fuller’s beer with characteristic marmalade and spearmint aroma but also hints of fresh grassy hops and hazelnut above the fruity caramel malt. For its strength of 7.3%, I was surprised at the smooth, light, almost delicate initial taste, only after which the alcoholic warmth becomes apparent. It is certainly a very easy beer to drink, aided by the fact that it is not in the slightest bit cloying; for while the flavour is predominantly fruity and sweet with burnt sugar and caramel malt, it is remarkably well-balanced by a gentle but lingering dry hop finish.

The original Fuller’s Old Burton Extra was replaced in 1971 by a winter brew called ESB. Wonder what happened to that?

Wadworth's The Beer Kitchen

Wadworth brewery last year launched their Beer Kitchen range: five intensely flavoured bottled-beers, hand-crafted in small batches, specifically created to compliment food. Wadworth have also opened a Cookery School, located behind the Visitor Centre at the brewery in Devizes, Wiltshire. The school serves as a kitchen of excellence to educate and develop the skills of chefs from Wadworth pubs and as a place for members of the public to take part in fun, informative cookery classes.

Having received an email from Teresa Dadey of Wadworth, kindly asking if I would care to try some samples from the Beer Kitchen range, I replied that I would be delighted to do so and would be happy to promote the products on my Blog, so here we go.

But first I must insert a caveat.

You won’t find me using phrases here such as “the wheat beer’s wild but enthused embracing of a goat’s cheese canapé”. I have no objections to promoting beer as an accompaniment to food in a review but I’m no sommelier and make no pretence to be. The images supplied by Wadworth are therefore not of the food I actually ate.

Now I’ve made that clear, let’s press on.

First up is the Wheat Beer, made with Saaz and Styrian Golding hops, Pilsner Lager Malt, Malted Wheat and Coriander. “A joy with delicate white fish or a light salad”, it states on the back of the label. I have it with tinned sardines and slid in tomato sauce for my essential Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids, vine ripened tomatoes, reduced fat creamy coleslaw and wholemeal bread with low fat spread. The only problem is that I’m hot and dehydrated from jogging, the beers come in 330ml bottles and by the time I’ve quenched my thirst, even at 5.0% ABV, there’s only half of the liquid left to accompany the food.

330ml as a food compliment suggests contemplative sipping but I’m not called The Quaffer for nothing.

The tasting notes on the bottle state the Wheat Beer to be light and refreshing with a hint of spicy clove and tongue tingling citrus fizz. I’d wholly agree with that, adding banana on the nose. Light and refreshing it definitely was.

The traditional IPA is described as “pale golden in colour, high in alcohol (6.2%) and brewed with four hop varieties”. “A robust accompaniment to spicy or barbequed food” it states, so I line it up alongside my regular Saturday-night post-pub treat: Chicken Madras (specially made extra-hot) curry from my favourite takeaway just down the road. The tangerine notes and spicy hop bitterness of the beer proved to be an excellent match for the powerful but subtle flavours of the Madras, while the lingering dry bitter finish of the IPA cut through the hotness of the curry in a sharp and most satisfying way.

A pity, though, that I don’t have a few more bottles to hand, for I finish the beer long before the last grain of mushroom rice is forked up from the plate.

The Whisky Barrel Aged Premium Bitter is made from traditional Fuggles and Goldings hops, pale and crystal malts, and is aged is aged for two months in whisky barrels to develop its distinctive, smooth, bitter warmth from the spirit. “A heavenly companion to any cheese board”, it says on the label. That presents me with a bit of a problem as I make a point of avoiding dairy foods that are high in saturated fats. Fortunately, my local supermarket stocks an independent brand of strong cheddar with less than 2.0% saturated fat content.

I place thick slices of this cheddar atop Scandinavian-style high-fibre crispbreads, separated by a thin layer of low-fat spread and I’m now ready to remove the bottle top. Smoked vanilla wooden notes and whisky aromas emerge and the taste is as rich, dark and nutty as the label description claims it to be. But I would definitely add toffee and caramel to that. And at 5.8% this does prove to be a very pleasing companion to the healthy cheese and crackers snack on my plate.

Made with Fuggles hops, pale, chocolate and crystal malts, Kenyan Nyeri coffee beans and muscavado sugar, the Espresso Stout at 5.5% is said to be “perfection with a chocolate or toffee dessert, or enjoy as you would a coffee”. I don’t eat chocolates or desserts, so I take the latter advice. For me, the “smooth sweet finish” rather overpowers the “sumptuous bitter coffee flavour”. Perhaps that is because I am used to more aggressively bitter Espresso Stouts and richer roasted, full-bodied coffees. But I can see exactly why this stout could be sipped in blissful contemplation while nibbling on squares of chocolate.

I didn’t receive a sample of the fifth beer in the range, Orange Peel Beer, so I’ll simply state the product description: “rich, golden and full bodied with tangy orange and caramel sweet flavours, and aromas of citrus, melon and spice - a superb complement to rich dishes such as game, or to savour on its own”.

I’d be very happy to recommend these beers to the section of the market at whom the product is presumably aimed. In sociological terms I see this section as an emergent middle-class set of consumers where status distinctions based on cultural capital are obtained in this culinary context from matching small-batch beers with what might be termed (without any intended pejorative connotations on my part) gourmet or gastro food.

But would I purchase these beers for myself? I’d certainly like to try the IPA and the Whisky Barrel Bitter once again and if the range was locally obtainable in an off-licence or supermarket, I’ll probably be tempted to sample all five; but as far as I can ascertain, Wadworth is the only direct supplier. And if I was to buy any of these on a regular basis, I’d want them in 500ml bottles to go with my large, honest portions of plain (and healthy) fare. As I said, I’m no sommelier - but these are good beers.

http://www.wadworthbeerkitchen.co.uk/

Truman’s Returns Home - Hackney site for new brewery

Truman’s – the small brewer with the big name – is coming home to East London.

Twenty-three years after the famous Truman’s Brewery on Brick Lane closed, the New Truman’s Brewery is opening in Hackney Wick, East London. The first Truman’s beers brewed at the new site are expected to hit London pubs early in 2013.

Founded in 1666, Truman’s was the beer of East London for more than 300 years. Re-founded in 2010 by two beer-lovers (pictured), it has been brewed elsewhere while a suitable new home was found. Its flagship beer – Truman’s Runner – is currently available in more than 150 pubs across London.

James Morgan, one of the founders of the New Truman’s Brewery, commented: “We are delighted to be bringing 346 years of brewing heritage back to the local community. This is the biggest brewing investment in East London in several decades. The site is in Hackney Wick, one of the most exciting areas in London. You can see the Olympic Stadium from the front door”.

Initial investment has been secured and the company’s ‘Truman’s Eagle’ scheme closes at the end of the year. The official opening of the New Truman’s Brewery is planned for the spring.

Michael-George Hemus, who re-launched the new brewery alongside James, added: “It all seemed a bit daunting when we set out to bring Truman’s back to East London. But we have had great support from the East London community, with a number of local people investing directly in the project via our ‘Truman’s Eagle’ scheme. We want to make the Truman’s name great again – and we are only just getting started.”

Vintage Ale Rediscovered: Forgotten beer back on sale after 35 years!

Now here’s a wonderful story that has everything: mystery, history, sentiment, a happy ending, a superb bottle of beer and a suggestion for a Christmas present!

A vintage ale which lay forgotten for thirty-five years, and was only rediscovered after a bottle of the brew exploded, went on sale nationwide in the UK yesterday, 22nd November 2012, exclusively at Aldi supermarkets, available until stocks last. The Bateman’s Vintage Ale (£3.29; 500ml) is based on a 1976 vintage bottle of Bateman’s BBB which was brewed for over fifty years at the family-run and owned brewery in Wainfleet near Skegness, Lincolnshire.

Thirty-five years ago, the Bateman family made the decision to stop brewing and bottling their barley wine, BBB, to concentrate on draught ale. At the end of the last bottling run George Bateman, the then Managing Director took the last four cases with the intention of opening them in four years to toast what would then be his eldest son Stuart’s twenty-first birthday.

Over time, though, the bottles were forgotten and it was not until just over a year ago that the stash of ale came to light when a bottle blew-up of its own accord. As the head draftsman cleared up the mess and dragged the remaining bottles out from where they had been hidden for thirty-five years, Stuart, now in his 50s and Managing Director of Bateman’s, discovered the treat his dad had saved for him decades before.

Upon opening one of the bottles, Stuart, who had presumed the contents would be spoiled, was astounded to find the beer clean, bright and brilliantly drinkable. Both Stuart and the Bateman’s Master Brewer decided that the flavour was so great that they wanted to recreate the beer for more than just the family to enjoy. Over the course of six months, Stuart and the master brewer matched the flavours perfectly using old brew records and multiple tasting sessions. Then, seven months ago, the current vintage was put into conditioning in oak casks for a distinctive character, thereby creating a limited release of the Bateman’s Vintage Ale.

Stuart recalls that “when we found the ale I was incredibly touched by the sentiment of my dad all those years ago. Looking at the bottles though, I didn’t hold out much hope of anything other than vinegar! But once we’d managed to remove the rusty crown cap and poured the ale into a glass I was surprised to see it was clean and clear.

Sipping it down, the taste was out of this world - malty, beery with a wonderful taste of port, brandy, wine and almonds. Having worked in this industry for more than thirty years I would still say it is the best beer I’ve ever tasted. And that’s why we’ve chosen to recreate the ale this Christmas so that hundreds of others can taste this amazing piece of history. I’ll be enjoying mine with some Christmas pudding.”

The ale, which has been made from a single variety of hops grown in Kent, is described as “full flavoured with notes of plum pudding and sherry mixed with rich fruits” and reminiscent of beers fashionable in the Dickensian era. Tony Baines, MD Buying at Aldi comments: “Aldi has had a strong working relationship with Bateman’s for eight years now and when Stuart approached us to sell this ale on an exclusive basis we knew it was something our customers would enjoy. The beer is like nothing else on the market with its incredible taste of Christmas - and has a wonderful story behind it too.”

WJ King brings an old favourite back to life - Kings Festive

Award-winning microbrewery WJ King is bringing back the taste of a bygone era with the launch of Kings Festive. The inspiration comes from Festive Ale that was originally brewed by King & Barnes to celebrate the Festival of Britain in 1951. Kings Festive (4.7% ABV) will be available from mid-November in pubs all across the South East of England to be enjoyed again.

Kings Festive is a traditional English Premium Ale. This full bodied ale with distinct vinous fruit flavours reminiscent of plump raisins and currants will be a welcome sight on the bar as it was so sadly missed. It has a deep red copper colour with a fine creamy head. There is a deliciously rich smooth mouthfeel and some great lacing on the glass.

Marketing Director Orla Lambe commented: “the original Festive Ale is probably the beer most talked about when customers visit our brewery when they reminisce about bygone days and I believe this new Kings Festive will be a very welcome sight on the bar from loyal fans of WJ King and equally a great beer for newcomers to the ale market.”

Ian Burgess, Head Brewer said “this is a classic English ale with mild-tempered bitterness using only the finest of local hops and malt. We are very pleased with the result of a retake on an old favourite.”

WJ King is based in Horsham, West Sussex, producing beers that are available in over 450 pubs in the south east of the UK, as well as nationally through website sales at http://kingbeer.co.uk/                                                                 

The New Inn, Ridgewood, Uckfield, East Sussex

Ridgewood is a village just south of Uckfield and this four-square building stands on the Lewes Road. Now housing the Ridgewood Care Services, there are no prizes for spotting that this was at some previous point the New Inn. What has long puzzled me is what seems to be brewery livery in the two roundels flanking the front elevation. Several times I’ve passed the place on the bus and never managed to make out the lettering; but in July of last year I finally walked the distance back from a drink at the Alma, Uckfield to take these photographs.

The left-side roundel is by far the best preserved of the two and the letters can be identified, quite clearly, as a B, T and a C (although not necessarily in that order). Even that did not immediately clarify matters as none of the obvious candidates for defunct local breweries seemed to fit any combination of those letters. It was in the records of the now-defunct Tamplins Brewery, Brighton, that I eventually found mention of the New Inn, Ridgewood Common, Uckfield. It had been owned by the Southdowns and East Grinstead Brewery from 1898 until 1920, when brewery and pub were acquired by Tamplins.

So that presumably clears up the mystery. This New Inn and that listed in the Tamplins records are one and the same, the roundels date from 1920 onwards (that does look like interwar brickwork fronting a much older building) and the letters stand for Tamplins Brewery (or Brewing) Company. Except that I’ve seen hundreds of ex-Tamplins houses and never a roundel like this. And Tamplins were formally known at the time as Tamplin & Sons Ltd. Why TBC?

The Crown & Anchor, Brighton - Once a House of Repute in Sussex

This plainer of the two adverts on this Blog appears in the Kemp Town Brewery publication of c. 1932, “Houses” of Repute in Sussex; also on p. 22 is the following passage on the hotel:

“Farther along Preston Road the Crown & Anchor represents the rebuilding of a house established as long ago as 1711. Its predecessor must, therefore, have ranked as an inn of some importance by reason of its situation on the main London road, when Brighton began its development as the world’s first seaside resort. It is a name that smacks of the sea, and its sign treats the old device of the crown and anchor in original modern fashion. The house is most conveniently placed for Preston Park, with its charming gardens and recreation facilities, and by its long establishment is one of the best known and certainly one of the favourite houses in Brighton”.

The original inn was of some importance; it was there on Sunday 14th August 1831 that the inquest was held into the death of one Celia Holloway. The jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against her husband, John Holloway. His lover and possible accomplice, Ann Kennett, was remanded for further questioning. The case against Holloway was compelling. Celia was killed and dismembered at a house in the North Steine. Some of her remains were then transported in a wheelbarrow by the accused couple to a copse in Lovers Walk, not far from the Crown & Anchor, and buried in a shallow grave. Holloway was hanged at Horsham Gaol on Friday 21st December 1831; Kennett was subsequently discharged.

The recovered portions of Celia were interred at St John’s Church, Preston. A plaque in the churchyard wall marks the spot.

The older, ornate advertisement appears in the 1901 Towners’ Directory of Brighton. It tells us of the hotel that it had an assembly room to seat three hundred; that it was the headquarters of Brighton Rugby Football Club; and that it boasted hot and cold baths. The Simmons catalogues of licensing records at Brighton History Centre suggest that the G. Short of the advert was the George Short who had held the pub since 1884 and that he may have died by 1908 as his wife is given as sole licensee for that year. Also interesting is that no license for the property is given prior to 1874. Perhaps the hotel was rebuilt about that time. Its present appearance is consistent with that period of public house architecture.

The Crown & Anchor was acquired by the Kemp Town Brewery in the 1920s from local rivals Smithers and Sons Ltd. (That latter brewery’s name is just visible, etched in the hotel’s windows of the 1901 advert.) Although the premises must have been internally altered at some point, there are no architect’s plans in the East Sussex Record Office and the hotel is not one of the brewery’s ‘improved’ public houses.

The Kemp Town Brewery’s past domination of this part of Brighton is quite remarkable. Starting at the Crown & Anchor, it would have been possible to complete a KTB pub crawl of quite staggering proportions without having to venture south of Preston Circus. But I will leave that as the topic of a future Blog.

Just Another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960, A Folk Music Scene? (Final Part)

From trans-local to virtual scene

Although their exact impact is difficult to assess, the three most influential (and interconnected) factors opening up traditional Sussex singers to a trans-local audience were the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), the EFDSS (English Folk Dance and Song Society), and Topic Records. We opened this chapter with Brian Matthews’s field-recordings of traditional singers in Sussex pubs. But we have cast Matthews merely as a generational representative: others were collecting in Sussex and surrounding counties during that period and even by the time that Matthews began his quest, traditional Sussex singer Bob Copper had for three years been part of a team working for the BBC in a country-wide folksong collecting campaign (Copper 1973). This material formed the basis of a 1952-1958 BBC Home Service radio series “As I Roved Out”, and Copper presented the programme on the occasions when it was broadcast from his Central Club, Peacehaven.

The EFDSS was formed in 1932 from a merger of the English Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dance Society, while the origins of these two parent bodies lie around the turn of the 20th century, before the availability of modern recording techniques, in a number of pioneering ‘pen and ink’ folksong collectors led by Cecil Sharp and the famous composer Ralph Vaughan-Williams. Our link with the EFDSS is their sponsoring of “As I Roved Out”. As this radio series began to raise the profile of traditional folksong, both Scan Tester and ‘Pop’ Maynard performed solo at the Society’s annual festival, following an earlier appearance in 1952 by the Copper family. Sound recordings of Maynard and others reside in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, the national archive for folk music, dance and song, while long playing records were also released by the EFDSS. Two particularly noteworthy ones on which Sussex singers appear are LP1002 ‘Traditional Folk Songs from Rottingdean’, Bob and Ron Copper, 1963; and LP1008 ‘All Jolly Fellows’, George Belton, 1967 (EFDSS Website 2009).

Topic Records was first formed in 1939 with politically-radical roots in the Workers Music Association. Our particular concern for the purpose of this chapter is the long playing records released on this London-based label during the 1970s which contain earlier recorded tracks from traditional Sussex singers. The most important of these are 12T235 ‘Blackberry Fold’, George Spicer, 1974: 12T286 ‘Ye Subjects of England’, George ‘Pop’ Maynard, 1976, and three more featuring various artists. These are 12T254 ‘When Sheepshearing’s Done’, 1975: 12TS285 ‘Green Grow the Laurels: Country Singers from the South’ 1976; and 12T317 ‘Songs and Southern Breezes’, 1977. The last of these is by far the most interesting as the material was originally recorded by Bob Copper while working for the BBC from 1954-1957 in the aforementioned folksong collection campaign, which found its outlet in “As I Roved Out” (Topic Records Website 2009).

The development of what might be conceptualised as a trans-local interest in traditional Sussex folksingers is complex and uneven. Firstly, it is clear that the first stirrings of the folk revival in the 1950s gave rise to a national concern with and interest in the collecting of traditional folksong. This not only preceded the development of a fully-fledged local scene but could be argued to have provided the catalyst for it. This ordering is not perverse for as Peterson and Bennett (2004) point out, even global media messages can provide the basis for local scene formation. Thus the field recordings of, for example, Bob Copper opened up audience outlets to otherwise obscure Sussex singers of the older generation such as George Attrill, Noah Gillette and Harold ‘Jim’ Swain, at a time when others, such as George ‘Pop’ Maynard were already relatively well-known.

Secondly, the subsequent release of long playing records containing tracks by such traditional Sussex source singers must have impacted beyond the confines of what had by then been a well-established if not already dissipating local scene, although without specific knowledge of distribution outlets and sales figures, any such influence is hard to determine. Thirdly, and ironically, even approaching the millennium, many of this older generation of traditional singers, despite having been recorded, remained not only unheard beyond the local area of interest but even perhaps outside of their specific bounded community. To understand how this situation was rectified we must conclude with the construction of a virtual scene, defined by Peterson and Bennett (2004) as involving electronic net-mediated communication between geographically dispersed people via a listserv, chat-room or, in our case, web page facilitating the online trading of images, information and artefacts.

The field recordings of Brian Matthews lay unreleased and virtually forgotten for some forty years, until Steve Pennells, a fellow collector of that era, made know their existence to Musical Traditions. MT as we shall refer to it, originated in 1983 as a privately-produced paper magazine with a print run of around a thousand copies. Although produced, edited and distributed in Britain its concern was with most aspects of traditional music and the content could accurately be described as global in scope. Having folded in 1994 due to financial problems, it was resurrected two years later as an Internet-based magazine. All thirteen issues of the paper magazine can be accessed on the site, along with 1300 sound clips, over 2500 photos, the complete Topic Records discography and an extensive directory of links. The site now receives over a million visitors a year who in 2008 between them downloaded 2.3 million separate pages. The entire site is also available on two CD-ROM volumes (MT Website 2009).

Since its inception, MT had been producing its own cassettes of music not otherwise available via the usual commercial channels. By June 1998 it had published its first CD and in 2000 followed MTCD304 ‘Come Hand to Me the Glass’, featuring Sussex traditional singer George Townshend, using recordings made by Brian Matthews. MTCD309-10 - the inspiration for this chapter - came out later the same year, while all of Matthews’s recordings of George ‘Pop’ Maynard are now available on MTCD400-1 ‘Down the Cherry Tree’. It was through his fame as a player of marbles that I first became interested in Maynard, but a Google internet search soon brought me to the MT website and led to my purchase of the CD that gives this chapter its title. So in conclusion it is by virtue of a virtual scene that a CD recording of the spontaneous singing of traditional folk song by a farmhand long-dead, much of whose life was spent in rural Sussex, could be heard in an academic conference in Vienna, in the new millennium.

Sources for whole article

Books

Bennett, Clive (2002), Sussex Folk: The Folk Song Revival In Sussex, Bakewell: Country Books.

Clarke, John and Critcher, Chas (eds.) (1979) Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory, London: Hutchingson.

Copper, Bob (1973) Songs & Southern Breezes: Country Folk & Country Ways, London: Heinemann.

Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony (eds.) (1976) Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, London: Hutchingson.

Harker, Dave (1985) Fakesong: The Manufacture of British ‘Folksong 1700 to the Present Day, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Muggleton, David (2011) Just another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960 – eine Folkmusikszene? In ‘They Say I’m Different’: Popularmusik, Szenen und ihre Akteruinnen (Edited by W. Fichna and R. Reitsamer), pp. 21-36. Wien: Löcker Verlag.

Musical Traditions Records (2000), Just Another Saturday Night, Sussex 1960: Songs From Country Pubs, Liner notes accompanying Double Compact Disc MTCD309-10, Stroud: Musical Traditions.

Peterson, Richard A. and Bennett, Andy (2004), ‘Introducing Music Scenes’, in Andy Bennett and Richard A. Peterson (eds.) Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual, pp. 1-15, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Sinfield, Alan (1989), Literature, Politics and Culture in Post-War Britain

Thornton, Sarah (1995) Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge: Polity.

Williams, Raymond (1977), Marxism and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Websites

EFDSS – English Folkdance and Song Society, http://www.efdss.org/history.html, (accessed December 2009)

Musical Traditions, http://www.mustrad.org.uk/, (accessed December 2009)

Topic Records, http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/, (accessed December 2009)

Just Another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960. A Folk Music Scene? (Part 4)

The involvement of the traditional singers

When the traditional singers began interfacing with the folk revivalists they were thus caught up in a gathering momentum, developing definite scenic qualities. This interaction involved a two-way movement. On the one hand, the revivalists travelled to pubs to see the traditional signers at first-hand. Yet these occasions could lack the spontaneity of the usual traditional signing context. Being ‘hosted’ events they carried a weight of expectation that too often caused them to be contrived. Such sessions have since been dismissively described as organised “for the benefit of the folk academics who usually outnumbered the singers ferried in from outlying areas for the event” (cited in Bennett, 2002, p. 170). The spontaneity was also lost when the movement was reversed and the traditional singers themselves appeared at organised club events. The informal and spontaneous nature of the older generation’s singing diminished as their involvement at formal club events conferred on them the status of officially performing guests. These occasions, moreover, began to be mediated in a highly literate manner via events publicity to a set of enthusiasts.


The presence of the older singers at the clubs organised by the younger generation began as early as 1958 when the Horsham Songswappers was founded and traditional singers such as George Belton (1898-1980) and Bob Blake (1908-1991) became regulars at its largely informal meetings in the church hall. In July 1961 the Songswappers organised one of the first folk festivals in the county, at Horsham Boys’ Club, where the aforementioned two traditional singers performed along with their contemporaries George Townshend (1882-1967), Cyril Phillips (1911-1990), concertina player Scan Tester (1886-1972) and mouth- organist Bill Agate. By 1967, the organiser of Friday’s Folk club at the Springfield Hotel, Brighton had begun to put on ‘Special Traditional Evenings’ with the stated intention of introducing traditional singers to the younger generation of folk club attendees. The first of these events was a celebration of Scan Tester’s 81st birthday. Also attending was Cyril Phillips and George Belton.

After both Belton and Blake appeared at the Lewes Arms Folk Club, Lewes, in August 1969, the club organisers were encouraged to hold a regular ‘Sussex Singers Night’. The first of these in 1971 was to celebrate Scan Tester’s 85th birthday! Another ‘Sussex Singers Night’ originated around the same time at the Ram Inn, at nearby Firle. This was intended as a regular social gathering for traditional source singers to supplement their occasional meetings at pubs and festivals. A link between the venues was the presence of members of the Coppers of Rottingdean, a Sussex family with a long-established heritage of traditional singing. Bob Copper (1915-2004) was the licensee of the Central Club at the coastal resort of Peacehaven, and it was there in 1971 that Bob began a folk club. His many guests included traditional singers who were also personal friends of the famous singing family. In the autumn of 1978, the Brighton Singers Club at the Marlborough Hotel was holding a bi-monthly session devoted to traditional guest singers.


As late as the mid-1990s, appearing at clubs in Lewes and Seaford were traditional signers such as the Coppers, Louie Fuller (1916- ) and Ron Spicer (1929-1996), son of the same George Spicer whom Brian Matthews had met over a quarter of a century earlier in the Punch Bowl pub, Turners Hill. The folk revival had by that time dissipated but it is difficult to estimate at what point beforehand the local scene had broached the boundaries of Sussex. This point is important for a local scene’s regular connections with devotees in more distant places enable it to take on trans-local properties (Peterson and Bennett, 2004). That there had been a national folk revival is undeniable but what is to be assessed is the degree to which devotees (performers, fans and producers) interacted and communicated with each other across different localised areas, with a particular focus on Sussex and the traditional singers. Brighton’s first formal folk club “had a stated policy of bringing the top national performers of the day” to that town (Bennett, 2002, p. 20) and many of their promotional posters ran the strap-line: REGULAR APPEARANCE OF LONDON ARTISTES.

Even as early as 1961 the Brighton Ballads and Blues Club had presented a sell-out solo evening concert with an internationally famous figure no less than the great Pete Seeger. Bennett and Peterson (2004, p 9) also make reference to the music festival a particular type of trans-local scene and it is well documented by Bennett (2002) that for the thirty or so year span covered in his book, Sussex hosted a wide variety of folk festivals, some of which (for example, Lewes Folk Day, 1977) received national press coverage. A focus on performers does not, however, tell us anything about the geographical composition of audiences at such events.

Nor is it clear to what extent the traditional singers were represented at these performances: the Coppers, George Belton and Cyril Phillips all performed at Lewes Folk Day, 1976, but these appear to be in a minority compared to younger and nationally famous figures. It is easier to demonstrate the integration of the residual culture of Sussex singers into the local scene than to be certain about their trans-local interfacing. Unless, that is, we turn away from face-to-face interaction to focus on the circulation and exchange of recordings.

 

Sources for whole article

Books

Bennett, Clive (2002), Sussex Folk: The Folk Song Revival In Sussex, Bakewell: Country Books.

Clarke, John and Critcher, Chas (eds.) (1979) Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory, London: Hutchingson.

Copper, Bob (1973) Songs & Southern Breezes: Country Folk & Country Ways, London: Heinemann.

Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony (eds.) (1976) Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, London: Hutchingson.

Harker, Dave (1985) Fakesong: The Manufacture of British ‘Folksong 1700 to the Present Day, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Muggleton, David (2011) Just another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960 – eine Folkmusikszene? In ‘They Say I’m Different’: Popularmusik, Szenen und ihre Akteruinnen (Edited by W. Fichna and R. Reitsamer), pp. 21-36. Wien: Löcker Verlag.

Musical Traditions Records (2000), Just Another Saturday Night, Sussex 1960: Songs From Country Pubs, Liner notes accompanying Double Compact Disc MTCD309-10, Stroud: Musical Traditions.

Peterson, Richard A. and Bennett, Andy (2004), ‘Introducing Music Scenes’, in Andy Bennett and Richard A. Peterson (eds.) Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual, pp. 1-15, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Sinfield, Alan (1989), Literature, Politics and Culture in Post-War Britain

Thornton, Sarah (1995) Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge: Polity.

Williams, Raymond (1977), Marxism and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Websites

EFDSS – English Folkdance and Song Society, http://www.efdss.org/history.html, (accessed December 2009)

Musical Traditions, http://www.mustrad.org.uk/, (accessed December 2009)

Topic Records, http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/, (accessed December 2009)

 

Just Another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960, A Folk Music Scene? (Part 3)

The development of a local scene

While friendships and social networks linked some of the traditional singers, it would have been a mistake to assume that, despite their shared Sussex location, most knew each other and interacted on a regular basis. Theirs had been a relatively static culture with scant social or geographic mobility and minimal mediation via publicity to a wider public. Yet the 1950s and 1960s saw far-reaching social changes that impacted upon this residual culture, forcing its members into greater proximity and prominence.

While the breaking up of the urban traditional working-class community in the period after the Second World War has been well documented (e.g. Hall and Jefferson 1976; Clarke and Critcher 1979), this period also witnessed the decline of the agricultural labour force and the transformation of traditional rural communities.

As the extensive railway network was dismantled, private car ownership correspondingly grew bringing greater geographical mobility and easier access to neighbouring towns and to villages. Many small village schools were closed, catchment areas were widened and more children travelled by bus to larger educational establishments in towns, thus breaking long-established generational continuities in hitherto isolated rural communities. With the break-up of the British Empire considerable numbers ex-Colonial armed-forces officers and senior government civil servants returned to the home country and became landlords or regular customers of rural pubs. The idyllic vision of village life held by this ‘Gin and Tonic brigade’ (as they came to be colloquially and unflatteringly known through their choice of drink) effectively gentrified the public house, heightening its class tensions and marginalising the traditional customer base.

A contradictory movement of same time was the ideology of ‘classlessness’ that dominated the, then, contemporary socio-political discourse and pervaded public-house architectural design. Spatial divisions reflecting status and class differences were thought to be no longer relevant or appropriate. The resulting open-plan settings spelt the end for the traditional multi-room public-house layout. Spontaneous singing in pubs became less tolerated, out of keeping with the spirit of the times and an unpleasant throwback to a cruder culture.

Traditional singers who were made to feel unwelcome sought alternative, more sympathetic surroundings, forcing them into more face-to-face meetings and the forging of networks, not only with each other but with the younger members of the emergent culture. To fully appreciate this impact upon the older generation we must first examine how the emergent culture of younger singers became a fully-fledged folk revival with five clearly defined local scenic qualities.

Firstly, it was temporally and geographically delineated and distinctive. The Sussex folk revival began in earnest in the 1960s and peaked in the 1970s. It blossomed first in coastal Brighton albeit with preceding developments to the north at Horsham and to the east at Hastings. It then quickly spread via transportation networks to other county towns such as Worthing, Shoreham, Lewes, Seaford and Eastbourne. Its second scenic feature was the formalisation of musical events. Leading figures in the emergent culture set up and helped run folk clubs. Some clubs had formal membership with annual subscription although most necessitated paid admission by an audience to scheduled sessions by specialised singers at advertised venues. Many used pubs as venues but others employed entirely different types of buildings – coffee bars, church and public halls, ballrooms and restaurants. Even in pubs there was perhaps the utilisation of a stage in a separate upstairs ‘club-room’.

What was therefore occurring here was the organisation of regular singing ‘performances’ differentiated from the wider context of sociality. Although singaround and song-swap sessions remained popular, this led logically to the third scenic feature, the establishment of more formalised role distinctions between producers, fans and singers. The fourth scenic element was the way in which this revival was created, sustained and developed by informal D-I-Y networks relying upon volunteer labour and support facilities. Fifthly and finally, this involved the use of what, in another context, Thornton (1995) has labelled niche and micro media to create an alternative, localised identity in contrast to a mass-mediated, marketed musical mainstream. An examination of how the folk clubs were promoted will provide an interesting illustration of these fourth and fifth scenic elements.

Early events were publicised by the use of micro media such as posters, handbills and brief newsletters. These were independently produced, often crafted or typed by hand, and personally distributed or posted to club members. As the folk revival grew, the increasing number of individual clubs ensured the proliferation of such publicity material. An attempt to collate these into one publication had led by 1970 to The Brighton Folk Diary.

Edited by scene members Jim Marshall and Vic Smith, early issues of this listings magazine were produced though home-based collation and stapling sessions by volunteers. Its success in spreading the word and subsequent expansion of areas and clubs covered was reflected in its change of title by 1973 to The Sussex Folk Diary. Jim Marshall continues to this day to edit and produce what is now called The Folk Diary, spreading the word beyond the county boundaries into Surrey and Kent.

Niche media such as the local press were uninterested in developments happening in folk clubs until Jim Marshall secured a regular column alongside the existing jazz section in the Brighton and Hove Gazette. First published in June 1967 and interestingly entitled ‘The Folk Scene’, these “What’s-On” guides ran until 1981. A new technological development occurred when Jim Marshall began to produce home-made tapes in his front room for transmission on local radio. As it was with the press, the radio station had no in-house folk specialist, so invited Marshall to submit suitable material. The ensuring combinations of interviews and musical snippets made on his portable tape recorder were broadcast monthly on BBC Radio Brighton from late-1968, the fifteen minutes format reflected in the title ‘Folk 15’. By 1971 these radio slots had become a half hour programme re-titled ‘Minstrels Gallery’. Subsequently lengthened to one hour and recorded at the studio, they continued until 1996 – British radio’s longest-running folk music programme.

Sources for whole article

Books

Bennett, Clive (2002), Sussex Folk: The Folk Song Revival In Sussex, Bakewell: Country Books.

Clarke, John and Critcher, Chas (eds.) (1979) Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory, London: Hutchingson.

Copper, Bob (1973) Songs & Southern Breezes: Country Folk & Country Ways, London: Heinemann.

Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony (eds.) (1976) Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, London: Hutchingson.

Harker, Dave (1985) Fakesong: The Manufacture of British ‘Folksong 1700 to the Present Day, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Muggleton, David (2011) Just another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960 – eine Folkmusikszene? In ‘They Say I’m Different’: Popularmusik, Szenen und ihre Akteruinnen (Edited by W. Fichna and R. Reitsamer), pp. 21-36. Wien: Löcker Verlag.

Musical Traditions Records (2000), Just Another Saturday Night, Sussex 1960: Songs From Country Pubs, Liner notes accompanying Double Compact Disc MTCD309-10, Stroud: Musical Traditions.

Peterson, Richard A. and Bennett, Andy (2004), ‘Introducing Music Scenes’, in Andy Bennett and Richard A. Peterson (eds.) Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual, pp. 1-15, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Sinfield, Alan (1989), Literature, Politics and Culture in Post-War Britain

Thornton, Sarah (1995) Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge: Polity.

Williams, Raymond (1977), Marxism and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Websites

EFDSS – English Folkdance and Song Society, http://www.efdss.org/history.html, (accessed December 2009)

Musical Traditions, http://www.mustrad.org.uk/, (accessed December 2009)

Topic Records, http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/, (accessed December 2009)

 

Just Another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960. A Folk Music Scene? (Part 2)

Residual and emergent cultures

It is possible to portray these two musical cultures, of which the above two men – Spicer and Matthews - were the unofficial representatives, in terms of ideal-typical oppositions. The residual, as we have said, consisted of an older generation of traditional singers. They were born within the period 1870-1916 and had strong geographical ties to the locality. Many had been born within or near Sussex, or had moved there at an early age and had since remained. They had little formal education or were self-educated and could be characterised in social class terms as skilled or semi-skilled workers, typical occupations being railwaymen, roadmen, fishermen, agricultural labourers or travellers [3]. Their habitat was rural and they were the inheritors of an oral tradition of folk song, having learnt their repertoire from family, friends or workmates.

The figures of the emergent folk culture were born during the 1930s and 40s. Few of those who became central and committed members of this revivalist movement were born in Sussex. Most had been educated beyond the level of compulsory schooling with art-school and university students or graduates making up a sizable number of their ranks. Having taken the grammar school route into such middle-class occupations as lecturers, teachers, civil servants and librarians, they had experienced a significant degree of social and geographical mobility. Their habitat was urban, their politics if pronounced and articulated were liberal-left or radical, in some cases aligned to a bohemian sensibility – what in another context Alan Sinfield (1989) has termed ‘new-left subculture’. Theirs was a more literate and mediated voyage of discovery of the folk tradition, via traditional jazz and blues, American folksong, Ewan McColl and the voice of protest.

To what extent can the traditional singers be regarded as constituting a local music scene, according to the definitions put forward by Peterson and Bennett (2004)? I would argue that this older generation could be regarded as a local scene by virtue of the ‘organic’ set of relationships existing between the music and their long-standing local culture. While many of their songs had been documented in other areas of the United Kingdom, thereby forming a national heritage, often celebrating national events and reflecting perennial human concerns, they had been appropriated and relocated to represent Sussex surroundings. The songs were localised variants of the standard versions, often sung in dialect and personalised to reflect the idiosyncrasies of a particular singer. For this older generation the very act of singing was, moreover, grounded in the local traditions of their everyday life. Songs were learnt and sung in the contexts of both work – the fields of the countryside, the railways and brickyards, the beaches, boats and the huts of the fishermen - and leisure – the local village public house as the focus of the community.

The rigid class divisions of the time were embodied in the architecture, the actual spatial layout of the ‘pub’ (as it is known in its diminutive term). The ‘Saloon’ was frequented by the respectable tradesmen and business class; the ‘Public Bar’ was for the labouring working-class. It was these latter, prosaic surroundings more conducive to singing in which Matthews made most of his recordings. The pub was also the locus for traditional games, such as shove ha’penny, skittles, quoits, darts and marbles. Marbles has been part of Sussex folk-lore since the 16th century and many alehouses in the area had been marked out with the tell-tale ring on which the game takes place. An annual championship had been revived locally in 1932. George ‘Pop’ Maynard (pictured), captain of the 1948 champions, the Copthorne Spitfires, was one of the great traditional folk singers and a significant member of that older generation recorded by Matthews.

On the other hand, there are characteristics of local scenes as defined by Peterson and Bennett (2004) which the older generation did not display. One is the construction of an alternative musical identity, a differentiation from the mainstream mass-marketed music industry. Now it is true that this clustering traditional singers could very obviously be contrasted with the commercially-driven popular music of the time where a nucleus of producers provide multi-national sounds as ‘products’ for ‘consumers’. Yet it was very doubtful that his older generation had any self-constructed sense of identity that allowed a perception of distinction from a mainstream. It was, in fact, not a distinguishable musical community at all in the specific sense; rather, music was just one element, albeit an important one, in a residual, entirely natural ‘way of life’.

Whereas scenes are defined by the forming of “clusters of producers, musicians and fans, collectively sharing their common musical tastes” (Peterson and Bennett, 2004, p. 1), this residual culture did not have formal distinctions between producers, fans and singers, because their signing and the playing of instruments was not a formal ‘performance’ [4]. Just as singing in the fields at work was an integral, undifferentiated part of routine activity, the singing and playing of traditional songs in public houses was neither a formal session nor a series of regular, scheduled events. Although public it was also spontaneous, part of the wider sociality of pub-going. It would therefore be a mistake to think of singing in public houses as having the status of official sessions or regular, scheduled events.

“The idea that a singer was someone exclusive was not there then. Everybody sang. Some sung well, some didn’t, but singing was a normal as breathing. We sang up in the woods, we sang anywhere. You sing when you felt in the mood – you’d be in the pub and someone would start a song and all of a sudden the whole place lit up. It was never, “Well, let’s have a sing.” – it either happened or it didn’t” (Musical Traditions 2000 Double CD liner notes).

When one person in the pub finished singing, another may have started up, possibly before the assembled company had realised and had come to attention. Thus, the positions of audience member and performer were easily elided.

Notes

3. The use of the male gender here is deliberate. While some women were known singers of traditional song, they were more likely heard in a private or domestic context and rarely so in public or the patriarchal surroundings of the public house. The majority of singers recorded by Matthews and his contemporaries were men.

4. It is for this reason – to avoid the suggest they were engaged in a ‘performance’ - that I have collectively termed the older generation ‘singers’ rather than ‘performers’ even though some of them were non-singing instrumentalists.

Sources for whole article

Books

Bennett, Clive (2002), Sussex Folk: The Folk Song Revival In Sussex, Bakewell: Country Books.

Clarke, John and Critcher, Chas (eds.) (1979) Working-Class Culture: Studies in History and Theory, London: Hutchingson.

Copper, Bob (1973) Songs & Southern Breezes: Country Folk & Country Ways, London: Heinemann.

Hall, Stuart and Jefferson, Tony (eds.) (1976) Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain, London: Hutchingson.

Harker, Dave (1985) Fakesong: The Manufacture of British ‘Folksong 1700 to the Present Day, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Muggleton, David (2011) Just another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960 – eine Folkmusikszene? In ‘They Say I’m Different’: Popularmusik, Szenen und ihre Akteruinnen (Edited by W. Fichna and R. Reitsamer), pp. 21-36. Wien: Löcker Verlag.

Musical Traditions Records (2000), Just Another Saturday Night, Sussex 1960: Songs From Country Pubs, Liner notes accompanying Double Compact Disc MTCD309-10, Stroud: Musical Traditions.

Peterson, Richard A. and Bennett, Andy (2004), ‘Introducing Music Scenes’, in Andy Bennett and Richard A. Peterson (eds.) Music Scenes: Local, Translocal and Virtual, pp. 1-15, Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press.

Sinfield, Alan (1989), Literature, Politics and Culture in Post-War Britain

Thornton, Sarah (1995) Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital, Cambridge: Polity.

Williams, Raymond (1977), Marxism and Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Websites

EFDSS – English Folkdance and Song Society, http://www.efdss.org/history.html, (accessed December 2009)

Musical Traditions, http://www.mustrad.org.uk/, (accessed December 2009)

Topic Records, http://www.topicrecords.co.uk/, (accessed December 2009)