Folk in the Woods

It's been a busy weekend again, and I've been able to confirm that my parents are more or less OK now. A good side-effect of the incident is that I have slightly better points of contact with my family than before.

Anyway, when I'd spoken at length to one of them on Saturday afternoon, we treated ourselves to an odd and intimate evening of music out in the woods.

Not far from my place is a Youth Hostel in a forest of sorts surrounded by National Trust property. It's very old indeed, with no vehicular access, reached by a twenty minute walk down a bridleway from the nearest carpark. It has no services to speak of, so electricity is from solar panels backed up by a generator, and all water except drinking water comes from rain harvesting. The ceilings are low and full of beams, it's cramped, and staying there means sleeping in a dormitory in triple-decker bunk beds.

Periodically they have folk music nights there, and people seem to come from surprising distances to join in. One man (with the beard you might expect of a folk-music fan) had been coming for over forty years. When we arrived there weren't many people around, and I didn't think there would be to judge by the venue - which was a room about the size of a suburban master bedroom, perhaps, or a small living room, only to three-quarters scale in the height dimension. And of that, a large chunk was taken up by an enormous fireplace. But we made tea in the cheerfully communal way of hostels and got chatting to some pleasant people.

But as the evening wore on the room filled with people to a density of about one per square foot ... well, not quite, but close. All ages, too, from a slightly crippled older woman with a nun-style headscarf to a couple of toddlers. And a good many guitar cases.

And we all had a really good time. Not everybody was equally talented, but it didn't much matter. Some people performed while everybody listened quietly, such as the solo warblers of unaccompanied serious folk, but the general pattern was for someone to sing the verses of a well-known song and everyone to join in with the choruses. And sometimes one person played the guitar, sometimes several. "Folk" had a pretty broad definition, too, stretched to encompass basically anything that could be performed without electric backing - including Radiohead and Eighties electronic pop.

We left at about half past ten, and the evening was really just getting going. That's the great thing about a hostel in the woods. They could play and sing into the small hours without disturbing anybody at all, and then stumble up the narrow stairs to sleep.

All this might seem a bit strange to someone used to the brethren life, but actually it was one of the things I've done which felt most comfortingly familiar in many ways. A crowded room, acoustic music, and a hippyish vibe in which it was taken for granted that everyone present was a friend. Not exactly a brethren-style Saturday evening, but oddly not far off in feel.

Then today was the zoo in glorious weather. But that is best left for another time.