Foxwood Steel and Leeds Silver Steel Sparrows at Leeds Pride

Marching at Pride. It has to be said that we have more gay players in Foxwood than players prepared to do pan de neck, or if you are gonna start doing the maths, a similar number. . . . .

 

Daisy was a bit nervous about this very public event, but, to her amazement, found us at the beginning of the route, and Joe said afterwards that marching at Pride had been on his bucket list. It's just win-win all round, or maybe just Victoria surviving Another Fine Mess.

 

waiting to start

 

In the end, Foxwood was/were me [Victoria], Fehmina, Daisy, Vicky, Sparrows were Claudia, George, Chloe; friends were Carys, Josie and Joe. Andrew and Louie took photos and I have a great photo of Andrew in a sudden space in the crowd outside the Museum.

 

snapping the snapper

 

 

Joe, surprised to be crossing off something on the bucket list

 

 

 

I played tambourine until Chloe went back to work; Vicky played single second [and a heavy one at that!] throughout; Fehmina went for the purple G pan [called G for obvious reasons and tricky in the following keys - C, F, D, E, A, B, C# etc - I think you get the idea!]; Chloe played my soprano pan till she melted back into the crowd and back to work in town [now with rainbow cheeks and blue hair], George and Claudia played snare drums, Josie, Carys, Daisy and Joe played wood blocks and assorted percussion, as did any members of accompanying troupe as we could rope in. Given the lack of pitch generally we needed some noise.

 

phones out, waiting to start

We were booked by Sami, friend of Fehmina's who worked for a local bank [no advertising here!], and very proud we were to be marching. I come from a time when men were sent to prison . . .  and I spent years of my life at Foxwood School looking after all the gay kids [even got them, well the ones I knew of, put into my tutor group one year!] and giving the homophobes a hard time, especially when Margaret Thatcher gave us Clause 28.

 

 

 

We played two, three and chord songs - Wavin Flag, Jamaica Farewell, Road is Mine, etc with varying degrees of success. and great cheeriness. We also managed Under the Boardwalk. This was quite good [only been playing since was at Foxwood, and that closed in 1996].

 

 

 

 

We met in the Slug and Lettuce with a light prosecco and ended on Briggate with a coupla pints [after the Sparrows had gone, of course. Vicky's pan made a great shelf].