Foxwood Steel play Ruth and Claire's wedding

When colleague and musician, Ruth asked me to play her wedding, I felt honoured.

 

 

 

Well, Debs, as you know, I was told that I couldn't sing at the age of 7 [and suffering the PTS of all of that business!]; and despite doing piano to approximate Grade 6 [teacher didn't believe in exams], I was not allowed to take Music at high school as an exam subject. Degree in Languages, teacher trained in English, I ended up being a self-taught Head of Music, and actually, for years, had highest percentage of students taking GCSE Music [and passing] in Leeds.

 

 

 

Thus, on the closure of my beloved Foxwood School, I entered the Music Service without a music qualification to my name. I felt, maybe wrongly that some colleagues questioned my position there, and I did in fact take Grade 5 Theory after a while.

 

So when Diane asked me to her 50th; when Mavis asked me to play her twin daughters' 50th, and when Ruth asked me to play her wedding, I felt honoured. We even rehearsed. We were me, Georgia, Bex, Amy, Vicky, Tim, Sophie, Daisy.

 

That's it. Northorpe Hall - what a lovely venue; what a lovely day, a brief sunny respite between torrential rain on Friday and Hurricane Bertha on Sunday. We set up secretly outside the hall, waiting for our slot. The guests danced to us from quite early on in the set; a couple of them even tried to join us! And they congaed out into the sunshine to We Nah Goin' Home.

 

 

 

 

And possibly the best thing: the dj who took over waited a respectable five minutes until we had cleared away most of the pans and then played quite quietly, so the memory of the live music wasn't dashed and it was allowed to ebb away in our heads and hearts.

 

 

 

Then I went home and passed out. And then I woke up and went to John's birthday barbecue for 25 minutes, listened to the wonderful Speeding Dinosaurs play.

 

Then I went home and passed out.

 

Sue and the Dinosaurs