Foxwood Steel and Foxwood Doves at Gateway Church Easter Sunday at Notre Dame

Well Debs, it's the last lap this Easter break, and when I'm getting the 20 to 11 train from Harrogate last night, I know, and so does Bex, Joe MC, Varshika, Amy and Sophie, that there will be no Sunday lie-in. It's the thought of tea and hot cross buns at 10.30 that keeps me going. And now it's Sunday morning and now we are joined by Vicky, Katie and Lizzie. Helen, from Gateway agrees to guest on one song, which was probably an ask too far,

she ends up standing/sitting there for all the sets.Sorry, Helen.
There's some pictures of Bex still on the walls of the hall at Notre Dame, from when she was at college here. Does this mean she was very important student, or that they don't change their displays very often?

We play all our top tunes. We have realised that, in the absence of yourself, Gig, Danielle and Charlotte, it's up to me and Bex to play most of the melodies, and sometimes on one of our owns. Eek. Lizzie and Varshika take a couple of numbers. It's Matt from Gateway Church who is responsible for our lack of lie-in, but who does take some nice pics of us. And the hot cross buns were plentiful and lovely.

Foxwood at Sports Relief Leeds

Do you know, Debs, there would be no point unloading the van if it wasn't that it's a different van! Yes, no sooner than the Sparrows are out of the The Town Hall than Foxwood and Foxwood Doves are at Sports Relief in town. It's 8am on a Sunday morning and yes, we are ready and raring to go. And in a different van.

This is a three-hour endurance test; it's Carnival on a dry land float. Trying not to repeat tunes, there's Lizzie muttering Dead or Alive every time there's a pause. We're up to three drummers - what luxury - Natalie, Joe Mc and Tim. And, oops, I seem to have forgotten to take back City of Leeds School djembe. It's nearly a percussion section. Excellent.

We're just down from the Headrow and up from Briggate where Albion Whatever meets Lands Lane. The runners come round the corner and there we are urging them on. One of Lizzie's dental patients said she's done the Sports Relief Mile. Lizzie texted me: "I asked if she enjoyed the steelband. She said it got to the point when she turned a certain corner she would be able to hear us soon, and run to the music. Her friend [who works in an Italian cafe near where we played] said it was a good job she liked it as we were there for so long.!"


Today we are me, Bex, Katie, Natalie, Vicky, Daisy [with Lola], Georgia [thankfully late], Joe MC, Varshika, Amy, Tim, Lizzie, Sophie, Fehmina, Danielle. Charlotte woke up late, thought we were only playing for an hour, so didn't come at all. I had forgotten both hers and Gig's soprano pan. Thankfully, as I mentioned, Georgia was late enough to get her taxi to call at Moorland Road en route and Sophie and Fehmina happy enough, well, bless them them all, they did it, to wade through the cordoned off streets to help her down with them.

The Lord Mayor, who was present for The Sparrows at the Town Hall CLYM Prom, is walking the route. He came over and commended said Prom. Yo! Here's Amy and Lola re-enacting one of my favourite photos of yore.

Foxwood Steel at Oakwood Farmers Market

Hey Debs

Now it's spring at Oakwood Clock again. And Debs, we have run out of drummers. Natalie is at music centre; Joe Mo is working; Alan is in Spain; Joe Mac is in Brighton; Varshika doesn't consider herself a drummer [but she always gives in to popular pressure whenever I attempt, myself to sit at the kit]. Enter Tim, Diane's friend's nephew. And he coped excellently with all the instructions/bullying. Varshika did one number. Here's her pre-performance Dormouse impression.

The fine weather of the previous week is evaporating into droplets of rain and we have a two-gazebo moment. And it's also the third setlist of the season. I have printed off twelve copies and lost two before tune 3. Charlotte tacked a copy to the gazebo pole. Lizzie overslept for her favourite gig of the year! But still made it for most. The picture on the right I call "Wondering".

They love us here, and we love them. So they have booked us a year in advance for next year: March 16 2013; that's plenty of time to lose six drummers in!

Foxwood Steel play for Sarah's Hair Show for Barnado's at Woodkirk

Hi Debs, It's early March in the UK, it's dark and a bit nothing. Not an attractive time of year. But Sarah the Hairdresser has a fund-raising event for Barnado's on the 5th at Woodkirk Country Club, and it's me, Daisy, Georgia, Natalie, Vicky and Katie. Instead of going home at the end of the working day, we go for how lost you can be on the Dewsbury Road before depression sets in. It's a close shave.

I enticed the daughters into the gig on the grounds that we owed this to the person who had once tried to cut Lola's hair. [Not for the faint-hearted].

We are the warm-up for the show, a few tunes before the hair-cuts. Finishing at 7.30 I am anxious to get home. Alas it's a fashion show, and Gig and Diz are giving Sarah a bit more support than I have time for. I have to drag them away.

Carnival Messiah at West Yorkshire Playhouse 1999 and 2002

Dear Debs, I see that there is to be a celebration of Geraldine’s Connor’s life in March at The West Yorkshire Playhouse. So I thought this was the time that I should add mine and Foxwood Steel Bandits’ part in the story.

My steelbands [Foxwood, Sparrows, East Steel] and I played the Hallelujah Chorus in 1999 and 2002 at the Playhouse as [part of Geraldine's epic production that was Carnival Messiah. I think I speak for everybody when I say that it was one of the most moving and ecstatic moments of our lives. Hearing Jean or Michelle say, "Hallelujah, Hallelujah" and then me or Dave clicking the count in to those first joyous bars. We were only on stage for ten minutes but they were so intense. Then the triumphal ending; the truck rolls back and you have to stand really quietly, heart still racing, until you can jump off and dance up and down, or maybe comiserate with someone who missed a couple of notes out of bar 24. Whatever! [For the second run we marked ourselves out of ten every night.] The photograph above is of most of the players from the 1999 run.I played every evening and matinee for both five week runs [ soprano line in 1999, and alto line on double seconds in 2002], and most players played more than half of these shows. The cartoon above is Charlotte's drawing of the band. [I have blocked out of my memory loading the pans in and out and back to College of Music or West Park or City of Leeds School or wherever. Four sets of basses. You wouldn't want to carry them round in your head!]

Practices were whenever people could make them. Saturday afternoons often found Hayley and Stewart exchanging notes on the cellos in my back basement room; Wednesdays after school would find Alicia sorting out Arlisha and Lianna in the study; at City of Leeds School, Georgia showed Tanya and Sarah the way, and Bassem learnt the tenor line on three different layouts of tenor basses – at Parklands, Hillcrest and City of Leeds Schools. Melvin joined us late in the day and 12 year-old Morgan showed him the soprano line. [Melvin had actually been in the original cast, playing steelpan in the other band in London some years before].

There was a complicated rota worked out of who was to play each evening and which pans needed setting up or down. I would get to the Playhouse just before the break and tick players off as they arrived, then, if anyone was away or unexpectedly present a couple of us would rush down during the interval and change the pans backstage on the truck. Hayley worked at some pizza house, and some nights we’d have someone at the Green Room door, ready to let her through – she went more or less straight from the bus to the stage. Philip was at medical school in Birmingham – he only got there twice [hence he’s a bit ghostly out in Charlotte's cartoon].

There were occasional mishaps. I dislocated my knee cap the week before we started the first run, and had to sit down to play for the first two weeks [hence the wooden crutch in the cartoon]; Bex’s cellos were set up the wrong way one evening and she mimed her way through the whole Chorus. One evening in the second run we knew that all the cello-pan players would be away, so Jan had to leave bass and relearn the cellos for that one night.
I needed to make sure that all the under 16 year-olds had a lift or taxi home. Being amateurs, we could not expect everyone to commit to every show, but I need to ensure that the quality of our performance never diminished. We were only a small part of a great show, but my pride and the overall quality of the production ensured we were always good, even with a different permutation of players for every show. And, in fact, as you can see from our card from Geraldine in 1999, we did a good job.
We got standing ovations; we got good reviews. In fact the Daily Telegraph thought we were the only good thing about it. This went to some players’ heads and I had to remind them that it was Geraldine’s idea and vision that we were where we were in the show, and we played what we did. Mrs Sensible Band Leader! I loved our reviews as much as the next player. We made friendships, with Nigel, Ronald, Manny, Preacherman Dave, Pork Pie [see below with me and Mig at the after-party].
Anyway, all good things come to an end. New World re-formed in 2004, a steelband that Geraldine was keen to support and promote, and they played for the next Yorkshire production. But, if you come across the DVD [have to confess, not seen it, so don't actually know if we're on it] or the CD, that’s us playing. We were Foxwood: Victoria [me], Bex, Alicia, Stewart, Hayley, Natalie, Sarah L, Georgia, Morgan, Dave, Charlotte, Victoria S East Steel: Sue, Tamanna, Bassem, Sparrows/Steel Sensation/Merlyn Rees: Tanya S, Thomas, Rosalind, Melvin, Katie, Tracy, Lucy, Sarah, Tanya Y, Esther, Angelica, Sherelle, plus from Pan Explosion [College of Music Steelband]: Jan, Trish, Christine. Becky H,
. . . . and we loved every minute. Geraldine and I didn’t part, in the end, on good terms, which was a shame, but that’s sometimes how it goes, and it does not detract from the memory of those two great runs. And sometimes, I think that our contribution gets forgotten, so I am now setting the record straight for myself and for all of the others above.

Unity Panto

Dear Debs

So, you have your visa! I guess that means we will just have to have anothere goodbye drink. Oh well, if I must.

And here you are at the Unity Panto. Here's a picture you took from across the room, one from the first set,and a further one with you in.

This year Unity Panto is Gullible's Travels. Always meant to, only ever played/acted in one. Too much other stuff. So, the least I could do is a little pre-panto panning, and thank you to Sarah, yourself, [Foxwood], Amy, Varshika [Foxwood Doves], and Chloe and Millie C [Sparrows] and Sophie [Sparrows, Doves], we did a couple of 20 minute-slots.

We all sight-read tunes that we necessarily only play once a year. Plus Wavin Flag to give the Sparrows a fighting chance of already knowing something on this limitedness of pans. And then a day of rest before the undoubted madness that is Tropical World!

1976, the Strike of 2011 and Sharp Lane in Belle Isle

Dear Debs

Before I go back to the gigs that followed the Lantern Festival I feel a seasonal act of reflection coming on. It’s 1976, and three things are happening 50 miles away, two in Leeds and one in Blackburn. In Leeds 1. Helen and her chums in the council are taking up the government’s anti-racist, multi-cultural initiative that is SECTION 11 and 2. they have appointed StClair Morris to be Leeds Education Music Service's first steelpan teacher, [and one of the first in the UK [following Gerald Forsythe in London for the GLC].

In Blackburn I had just had my second child: and was also just meeting racism for the first time – massive, wholescale, disgusting unprovoked relentless attacks on the newly arrived and arriving Asian immigrants.

When Daisy was old enough to hang out at the babyminder’s, I took on a couple of part-time jobs, one as a barmaid, and one as a petrol pump attendant. Through both jobs I met various members of the public whose views on race left a little to be desired.

I got the phone number for Len Proos at the Blackburn CRE [Commission for Racial Equality].

I started to work as a volunteer for the CRE, and did eventually get a part-time job teaching Asian women English [which also seemed to involve an amount of eating great food and learning how to make pechoras and chapattis]. Here were my first tentative efforts at writing to the paper [Lancashire Evening News/Post?]. This resulted in nasty letters, phone calls and even an undertaker appearing at 11 one evening to take me away. [Len said it was par for the course.][It was also the 70s, hence the perm!]

Six years later, now a qualified English teacher in Leeds, I met StClair. My headteacher, Bob Spooner, had also used Section 11 money to buy a set of steel pans for the nearly all-white Foxwood School, to be a positive example of black culture. The music teacher hated the sound of the pans. Knowing of my history in Blackburn Mr Spooner asked me to learn how to teach them. It was a tenuous link; it was 1982; it was love at first sight.
Every Friday morning StClair came to Foxwood School, taught us a tune. I wrote all the notes down and we rehearsed during the week; then I went on a course [Music For Yourself and Your Class] at Beckett Park where I met Jan Holdstock. Here I met grids, and colour-coding. I needed something so we could easily remember what St Clair showed us on Fridays. Eventually I devised the Foxwood Songsheets, a highly refined system of grids, now also published and still used extensively in Leeds and in pockets round the UK [usually in the wake of a conference steelpan workshop].

And that’s how all this started. Thirty years later, Sharp Lane Primary School all-included Yr 6 Steel Band played for Over -55's lunch club in Belle isle on the 15th November, and Foxwood Steel and Leeds Silver Doves played for thousands of protesters outside Leeds Art Gallery for the Great Pensions Strike on the 30th. StClair, steel pan peri pioneer, travelling from school to school in the 70s and 80s passing the baton on, but without needing to let go. StClair retired from the Music Service a decade ago, but is still gigging with his Paradise Steel Band, and still doing workshops.

Back to the diary of November: from Yr 6 Sharp Lane [gigging after 2 and ½ half months – only possible with Stacy and Diane’s total involvement] to Foxwood Steel at the Rally – only possible to be that good through playing together for years, and having two amazing drummers: Natalie and Joe. Sadly for you, Debs and happily for us, the Rally was a gig that you were still in the UK to do.

Festival of Britain 2011

Dear Debs, It seems that you are now heading for Carriacou by way of Abu Dhabi which is somewhere in the Near Middle East, as Science Advisor. I'm not sure what to say, so I think I'll say Massive Congratulations. The work you did at Merlyn Rees and South Leeds High Schools, staying there through all the troubles, inducting one new Science teacher after another; devastating one Ofsted after another with your wonderful successes, only to see an incompetent and corrupt private education company close South Leeds - oh Heavens, I've wondered into my wrong blog!

Anyway, I'd like to think that playing pans with Foxwood and South Leeds is what has given you the strength to keep going, especially when it must have seemed that brilliance was no match for money and power.

Well, I was trying to go through all my gigs chronologically, and I was just heading towards the 60th anniversary of TASPO [Trinidad All Percussion Steel Orchestra] playing the first Festival of Britain in 1951, which was about to feature the Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows and the Leeds Silver Doves when I discovered that the Leeds Carnival Committee had run out of money and couldn't afford the massed Foxwood Carnival Steelband.

Debs I wish I couldn't believe it, but I could. Sadly I could. I looked on the Leeds Carnival website to see who was on the committee. Who thought it was okay to dismiss the bands who were good enough for the Festival of Britain at the Southbank Centre [only 4 weeks earlier], who were good enough for the Royal Albert Hall [2 years previously], who were good for Huddersfield, Manchester, Otley, Featherstone, Brotherton Carnivals, invited to London and Birmingham.

When we were asked to play at the Festival of Britain, I felt the same glow that I had done in 1993 when I was asked for the first time to play on a float at Leeds Carnival. And, once you get over the nerves, there is nothing like playing your hometown. And, when we were asked to play in London, the particular slant was on how pans had got into schools and reached Britain's youth. So the Festival organisers asked the National Festival of Music For Youth to reccommend some bands, and they reccommended us from Leeds. And there was nothing like playing for your capital city, and representing your town, and representing it with students from the inner city of your town, including Hyde Park [that's in Leeds], Chapeltown, Harehills, Osmondthorpe, Beeston, Kirkstall, Holbeck, Middleton, Little London, Burley.

Debs, it doesn't get better than that.

Manchester and Leeds: The demise or not of steelbands in the Carnival Parade: A Tale of Two Cities

I saw it in the papers: No steelband in the Leeds Carnival Parade. Organisers blame the riots.

[This is us: Foxwood, Doves, SteelRising at Manchester two weeks ago]
Well, there never was going to be a steelband on a float at Leeds Carnival this year. By the time we phoned the organisers to check the arrangements there was nothing to arrange. The only steelband would be on the stage, and it was not our turn this year. I was told troupes don’t want to dance behind the quieter, relatively slower sounds of a steelband. And indeed I remember meeting one of the carnival queens over a decade ago in a special school where we both were teaching that term. I said we need a troupe for our band, and she said “I’m not jumping up behind no steelband” I was taken aback, even mortified by the vehemence with which she spoke.

Then this week on Radio 4 Kwame Kwei-Armah was explaining in his history of London Carnival how the sound systems arrived in order to include the watching but not participating Jamaicans and other islanders in Carnival.

Thus an uneasy tension ever since between steelbands and sound systems. What’s to do about it?

Well for a start, don’t blame the riots, and for a second, don’t put a spokesperson on Radio Five Live saying it’s not usual to have a steelband in the Leeds parade. If this was the case, which it isn’t, for the second biggest UK West Indian Carnival this isn’t something you would want to broadcast.

Four years ago the organisers of newly reformed Manchester Carnival made a massive effort to gets steelbands back in parade. They got five of us including Foxwood/Doves/SteelRising and new World from Leeds, and North Stars from Huddersfield. And four years later, they are still getting them in. You don’t have to be older generation to love steelbands. And you don’t have to be West Indian, or just Trinidadian. Along with reggae music, steelbands must be one of the most popular imports from the West Indies to UK, and indeed Europe. There’s room for us both.

Here's two pictures of Lizzie on floats at Manchester and Huddersfield.

This year Manchester experienced big city centre riots; on Wednesday the police cancelled the parade; on Thursday the troupes persuaded them to reinstate the parade; by which time all but four of the the lorries and their drivers had other jobs. I managed to get to recover all but three of my players and we played in the arena, nestling between sound systems. Better than not playing at all, and actually, it was ace.

Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows play at the Mariners and More Fund Raising for the Festival of Britain

Dear Debs

It's all go here. No sooner than we get the pans back into the Pan Room at City than it's round the back of the school with van, and loading up for the Mariners' Day Centre, Beeston. This is where band-member, Evie's mum works and it's a good few quid to help us down to London. The Lord Mayor calls, and Bruntcliffe School brings a lovely band and singers.

This is on Tuesday July 5th, which is a week day. The band now consists of maternity leaves, home educated and Year 11s just finished their exams. It was ever thus. And how is it, I hear you ask that we can all play along together from different bands?

Answer: Foxwood songsheets, sight-reading, and a number of tunes in common. It is not rocket science, and while "purists" wobble on about the aural tradition, my bands can play loads of tunes, at the drop of hat, at summer fairs, galas, local carnivals and festivals, and re-open any number of bandstands without going into rehearsal meltdown first.

Pictures to follow.

City of Leeds Summer Fair and the Great Run-up to the Festival of Britain

It is the first Saturday in July and Sparrows, Doves and Foxwood are all in action at the summer fair. John has brought the inflatables and the Smalls are eying up the rides. We are now fund-raising in ridiculous earnest. Ashley's dad, Richard, is the bun-sale king, and now he and Vicky have made £20 selling cakes.

In a rash, and very typical Victoria-esque moment last week I told Spring Bank Primary School that I would call up with some Sparrows and do a spot with my Year Sixes and with Sparrows. Luckily, Millie's mother, Trish, has a big car and big heart, and we bundled two cars' worth of players along to do this. Most of Year 6 scattered, but a few brave souls did stand up to be counted. Back to City where I found I had left Amy, who had been the first to offer to do this little gigette.

I don't have permission to show the primary school students so here's a pic of some Sparrows playing after. We didn't make any money at Spring Bank because I forgot to tell them we were fund-rasining. I might sack myself as a money-maker, but I'd have to get in there before Bex does.

Foxwood and Doves at the Great Pensions Strike Leeds

Dear Debs

We've barely unloaded from the Hop, when it's back in the van with our eight piece: triple basses, guitars, 2 seconds, double tenor, 2 sopranos, kit, and I'm now unloading in Leeds City Square. It's 30th June and it's the great UK Big Pensions Strike. And, not only has Leeds TUC put the steel band on its banner [facing the brass band] in our honour but now the NUT has asked us to play in the Square as people gather for the rally and speeches.

Honoured to play; honoured to be asked. I have been an NUT member for 31 years and they have helped me personally on more than one occasion, and they help in the fight against the injustices that have so sadly beset our city over those decades. They are someones to turn to when you feel that They are out to get you. And also now that we have free meals at the Sheesh Mahal if we help make the meetings quorate, even better. Well, I teach night classess on Thursdays so it is theoretically better. I get to the meeting then have to leave before the meal, and with that wonderful smell taunting me as I leave.

Of course, it is a strike for teachers and lecturers but Foxwood Steel Band is not all teachers. And not any lecturers. Luckily some student Doves are able to join. And so as 11.30 gets closer the band goes from a duo [Me and Gig] to a trio [and this is how Sarah spends her lunchbreak], to briefly an octet [well, Sarah has got to eat as well!].

We are on tele for an very excited 11 seconds [and this, Mig, I guess you could call an transfered epithet], and Gig has it recorded, so we can compete for who gets most air time! And it's Georgia, of course!

Foxwood at The Hop

It's just a hop down the road for Foxwood Steel to the Hop on Granary Wharf. And there was a little stage for us. Right in the middle. We moved it to by the Hop window. It's a curious thing about bars, schools, venues in general in the UK. Even parks now. We all want to play outside in summer, but where's the roof? It's in Homebase or B and Q and it takes off in a high wind - that is, if Health and Safety even let you put it up.

Oh for the bandstands of yore. Now we have, on a couple of occasions played for the re-inauguration of bandstands , one in Bradford [Lister Park I think] about 4 years ago, and Horsforth Hall Park in Leeds - that was way back last century - 1997-ish, I think.

Anyway, it nearly rained at the Hop, but it didn't. That was about as exciting as it got. No, I lie. We were kept with a steady supply of cups of tea, which, to my mind, makes a gig. Of course buns would be paradise; but tea is halfway there. Obviously, am not going to go on about this, but before any gig there is a certain amount of dragging the pans down the garden, loading, driving, finding where to drop off and where to park; there's always a skirmish with security, which usually involves the first words, "You can't park here . . . " This is followed on the rainy days by, "You can't put that up there . ."

. . . so, where was I, oh yes, unloading, guarding, driving off for the car park, setting up . . So before you even hit the first G chord for Always On My Mind [more Pet Shop than Elvis], you've experienced some physical labour and a small amount of mental trauma.

"Cuppa?" "Absolutely"

I'll put in the pictures when I remember which ancient computer I put them onto, and whenever I have two hours to spare as they deign to grind into action. This is us last year when Amy from the Silver Doves joined us.

From the Yorkshire Air Ambulance to the Scottish Fire Brigade

Well, these holidays have been great. I don't know how else I would have caught up with the paperwork. But I did fancy a bit of time out of Leeds, and as I am gearing up to checking out Fingal's Cave with Ann in the May half term, Glasgow seemed like a good idea. Morgan agreed to come with me, and just as I was booking hotels and trains on line, ex-pupil: Andy Lofty contacted the Foxwood website to see if we would like to play a benefit for the Air Ambulance at Leeds Bus Station on Thursday.

And here's a combination to die for: Foxwood ex-student, good cause, busy thoroughfare. I booked our tickets for the 1.05 to Glasgow, found a hostel just out of the city centre, contacted Foxwood and Doves and two days later, there we were: me, Mig, Gig, Varshika, Amy, Bex and Charlotte. The man in the picture wasn't all that keen by the looks! Or was he just on his phone?
Striking up a conversation with Dougie on the Edinburgh to Glasgow train, we: me and Morgan allowed ourselves to take a lift with him, to our lodgings on the Firhill Road. A modern block of student accomodation overlooking the Partick Thistle stadium. Dougie called it Partick Thistle Nil. I think we understood what he was saying.

We walked along the canal into town, and there, even as the town cente began was the Wee Curry House. We squashed in and tucked in. Later we found it was in the Rough Guide to . .

The city hostelries didn't take our fancy. We had a bit of a laugh in the Open Mike Bar, but en route for Byers Road [as recommended by Carrie-ann] we bumped into a Thursday night acoustic session in the Islay for a group of older generation folk musicians playing guitars, violin, boran, pipe, mandolin. So we just stayed. And then after a magical hour and a couple of pints, the dynamics changed as different musicians joined the session. And the Old Guy leader packed away his guitar after a couple of tunes with the newcomers, and left. We thanked him, and left ourselves.

Next day we did art galleries: Hunterian and Kelvingrove, and saw many a famous painter's work. Here's me checking out Dali's Christ in a discreet tourist in front of a famous painting kind of a way. Later that evening massive pub crawl - probably burnt off the alcohol striding from pub to pub. Which was probably just as well, because our short Scottish break ended with with not one, but two fire alarms in the middle of the night, but noone admitting to having a cig in in Block Whatever 4a.

Grabbing my coat, my keys and my camera . . . [I think we knew it wasn't a fire] here's a blurry picture of bleary people.