Lille. I was very Excited

The Lille Trip starts de grand bonne heure at Leeds Station where I am an hour early for my train, checking my tickets for the hundredth time but not really seeing them.



tomato eating dog!



It's the 11.05 a.m to London KX, over to St Pancras for the 3.04 Eurostar to Lille . Fortunately, while I still had wifi, I decided to mention to Vivianne that I had les cheveux bleus and roses. Because as it turns out there are three sorties at Lille Gare Europeen and it is dark when we are turned out into the evening cold. I walk around about what seems to be the central bit while Vivianne tries to work out what sortie I might be near. 

Lille

Vivianne lives in Roubaix to where we now repair for a couple of bieres and dinner, and where I am unexpectedly vegetarian, and cause complete desordre on their kitchen table with songsheets and pan sticks.

Lift back to the Hotel de Paix in Rue de Paris. This lodgings is some sort of paradise that I have entered. I begin the first of several selfies in the mirror on the landing. I stop taking the lift down so as to admire and revel in the staircase.

Bien sur my travel adaptor is the wrong one, but Jurgen and Vivianne have lent me their phone charger. I go down for a glass of wine and talk with the lovely receptionist who is happy to let me further practise my rusty old French. I have put my watch forward, but not my mobile, so when it comes to setting the alarm I spend some time calculating what it would be, set it, and then discover, en hazard, that the phone reset itself to be French time. I reset.



I get everyone's cheese salads. Cecile

At 8.20 a.m, miraculously, I rendezvous with Vivianne in the Gare Lille Flandres, and we take the tube to Fives, where I observe two pan lessons. Everyone is adorable, staff, eleves. They have 24 single pans [6 guitars, 6 seconds [altos] 6 basses and 8 sopranos, the perfect instruments for beginners and primary schools. Before too long they are all covered with gommettes and notes all labelled. [I did ask first!]

At lunchtime Cecile and Vivianne have brought food for me. In the afternoon I am let loose on these lovely classes with their lovely class teachers. No uniforms. The students seemed to manage to behave pretty well without. Quelle surprise! I was in France, in French, on pans. Heaven. Meet Kristina, Sidonie.

Matin tele francaise

Monday evening I make a promenade around the quarter, decide against eating out, find a supermarche and head back for a snack and French tele. After some dross I discover the most wonderful two documentaries about the history of French culture.

Tuesday morning up with the allouettes, again. Manage to find the station and the right tube line for Fives, in which is situee l'ecole. Meet Jerome. Same classes which Vivianne and Cecile share with me. they do Rum and Coca Cola and No Woman  No Cry, I do Largo and the Twelve Bar. Hundreds, nay thousands of Leeds school children and adult learners will be humming these already (well not that they read this blog). 

end of concert at Conservatoire

Vivianne, Cecile and I have lunch with Sidonie at the Mairie where I still have forgotten to mention the vege status. They surround my plate with their cheese salads. I am still eating them on the Eurostar home!

Vivianne and I head off to some school or other, where she teaches tuba. Here to my amazement we collect nine children and a teaching assistant and take the bus to the conservatoire.  I opine it would be less compliquee to move the tubas and not the children, but today it is a tuba concert at the Conservatoire. And what a lovely concert this turns out to be. The Prof demos a dijeridoo, a serpent, then the tuba, then some students play some solos, and one duet. All unbelievably beautiful. 

Next I go for a walk around Vieux Lille, find this lovely cafe (Honey and Pie) have a bun and a cuppa. After which I get perdue and practise,  "Je cherche la Conservatoire", until I find somewhere familiar. As you do.

French is spoken fast. When les gens turn to address me they speak more slowly, but as soon as they turn to each other we have gone back to 60kph! V says, even after I am not there  they will still be speaking slowly. I doubt it.

V and I walk back to new Lille through the belle old ville. By the time I have joined all the city dots I will be in Leeds again. LOL. And here's a wonderful  Creperie and I have a vegetarian galette, and a biere, bien sur, so good. 

Wednesday, by now an old hand on the tube, I am at the school at 9 a.m to meet the music teachers. Besides my old pals here now is Claire, Prune, Timothee, Charlotte, Clementine, Patrick, Joanne, Juliette. They are having  their monthly music teachers meeting. They are talking to each other sometimes about me but I am understanding only une moitié. 

Then we are in the pan room and being joined by as many muscian/teachers again and more - 23 pan players in all. We do Largo and Au Clair de la Lune. Timothee turns out to be a batteur, and supportive and interesting all in one go. [Couldn't resist a little crescendo at the end though!]

All too soon it is over and it's kisses with Cecile and Vivianne. Sidonie and I take a light lunch and a heavy chocolate pudding at Bvd JB Lebas , ex-station and now bar, restaurant and cultural hub. Display all round us re climate change. There's one on sea rising with wellington boots. See pic.

When S and I come to our last goodbye I nearly burst into tears with the thought of how welcome and generous everyone has been.

Then walkabout in Lille till it's time for a last cuppa in the Hotel du Paix, and over to Gare Lille Europe. Here a WW2 shell has caused a scare at the station and we are evacuated back to the north Pole of a platform. Enfin, on board, and peu en peu we are back to speaking English.

Think it was fair to say I was sorry to leave.

Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows play for Mosaic at Bradford City Hall

When Leah asked if the Sparrows could come to Bradford City Hall and rock the Mosaic Awards Evening, I thought - good opportunity for the New Sparrows to get some concert practice at posh venue. Sadly none of the New Sparrows were available on the day, so we cobbled together Old Sparrows, Foxwood and Steel Rising, and arrived in New Bradford in/on six different vehicles [three cars, one van, one train, one motorbike].

 

 

We were Me, Bex, Vicky, Wanda, Millie S, Claudia, Ashley, Yi Bai,

 

 

 

 

We discovered that thick carpet and voluminous velvet curtains play havoc with sound and timing, and it was a struggle at times to stay together.

 

We played as people arrived; we played as they networked at the end. In the middle these wonderful four girl singers from Swallow Hill played with one of them accompanying themselves on the keyboards. Ace.

 

Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows is a Leeds ArtForms City of Leeds Youth Music central ensemble. Leaders - Victoria Jaquiss, Bex Ainge. Rehearsals once a week in term time. Gigs - unexpectedly throughout the year, often working with adult steelbands: Foxwood and East Steel. 

 

New North Steelettes debut at North Leeds Music Centre

Hall set up for concert

This is my second year with NLMC. Half of last year's players started again, and a few new people joined. Some of the pans were a bit ropey at the beginning of term, but I have been slowly replacing the less desirables with more desirable ones. Last week I borrowed a pair of double basses from Bradford and I like to think made Isha's day.

basket music holder

Martin and the Gang

Mark looking grown up in suit

Anyway everyone seems to have caught up with each other, and we are now working on sixteen bar tunes with three or more chords, minors and majors, even the odd seventh, a few bits of unison, and call and response.

rehearsing

Here we are now, December 5th at this, what I took to be end-of-term concert, at NLMC, now housed at Allerton CE Primary School, no longer at Carr Manor. Better for pans as this is a single storey building and Mark has now purchased some tremendous trolleys and a stand bag.

For the concert we are Emma, Satinder, Annie, Julia, Isha, Kurum, Ella, Niall, and for a debut proper concert, I would say we were awesome.

Next weekend, I found out, almost by chance that there was yet another music centre lesson. Oops. And that Mark organised these concerts one week early so that the carols at Thorner didn't clash with the concert, and exhaust everyone. Fair enough.

nice trolley

East Steel at YAMSEN:SpeciallyMusic Town Hall Concert

art display

Yo ho ho

This year, not only is East Steel playing the YSM concert, but I have taken over co-ordinating the whole event from Sue, so the stress levels are higher than usual. Anyway this blog is about the steelband, so readers are spared any unnecessary details. Well maybe a couple. Here they are:

art display

rehearsing Sleigh Ride in Aberford Village Hall

art competition winners

Off By heart

On the day before the concert I assisted the team displaying the art competition winners. This marathon job involved pins, ribbons, display boards and backache. We were Mavis Sue S, Anne and Douglas, Diane C, Chloe and myself.



pan rehearsing with OBH

This also involved negotiating with Eric, Mike and team to get some maximum noticeboards plus I have donated to the Town Hall the one from West Park that has been cluttering up the City pan room for years. [I was only waiting for a good home, honest!].

dressing room stuff

On the Friday a week before, I joined Mavis at West Park to try out the numbers that East Steel would accompany Off By Heart on. On the Sunday before Bex and I hit Aberford Town Hall in order to do our joint Sleigh Ride in B flat. As you do if you have shared a stage for a decade with the lovely Yorkshire Post Band [conductor- Rob, cracking whip- Diane C2] who plays the same top tune. [Although I am sure that  someone once said we didn't use the note of B flat!]

On the day Rick takes me Millie and a large set of steelpans down to Leeds Town Hall.  Millie, in real life, a Sparrow, spends all day as the most wonderful technical support - this must be noted.



NWSILC rehearse Nativity

In the afternoon, Margaret and the crew brought the NW SILC nativity to rehearse.  They went through their paces four times until they were all familiar with what they had to do. And I must say both the rehearsal and the actual performance were very professional. Unfortunately I can't show too many [well hardly any]photos without permissions.

On the night the choirs are, besides OBH [led by Mavis and Pat], Young Accord and One Accord, [led by Sophie and Clare], the Minster singers [led by Simon][including Jan who transformed my educational life 30 years ago], Off the Cuff [led by Diane P; they are a mixed bag of ArtForms music teachers who teach children with Additional Needs all year round, plus flautist, Philip].

I have not name-checked everyone who contributed to the organising of or performing at this event, but I do need to name and credit Irene Peace who started these concerts off, on the grounds that children with additional needs deserved the best, the best of everything, and, if that means a concert in Leeds, it must be at Leeds Town Hall. And so it still is, 32 years later.

In the evening we have ALL our regular players [see Staveley's pic above]: me, Bex, Vicky S, Wanda, Lynn, Kirsty, Pippa, Anne, Trish, Joyce, Wendy, Vicky R, Sophie, Yi Bai, Maddy, and when Yi Bai sprints off to work, Bart finds himself crossing the stage for Break of Day and Diwali.



Bart joins us after Yi Bai heads off to work

Foxwood at Rosebank Millennium Green Street Party

So it's the Sunday the clocks go back and when Bassa Bassa asked for us to play a bit earlier so as not packing away in the dark, it was a good request.

 

 

However we left them packing away in the dark, even playing in the dark.

 

 

 

Before that I did a small drumming workshop with some local kids

 

 

 

 

and with Leah and family, Leah and family actually carried most of the gear across the road as the earlier start information bypassed most of the band. Sharing the bigger drums was a concept alien to some of the kids, and sharing too easily something the adults were trying on!

 

 

 

Ifty was there too, fresh from the camps of Calais, with his kids. His kids shared okay and did percussion later with Foxwood for a couple of tunes.

 

 

 

This was another street party from Hyde Park Source on Rosebank Millennium Green. We were me, Bex, Vicky, Fehmina, Daisy, Georgia, Charlotte, Yi Bai. We played on the pavement backed up against wall and hedge. Acoustically great.