‘Merry, Friendly, Country-Folks’
In his poem of Halloween written in 1796 Burns wrote some merry, friendly country-folks, together did convene, to burn their nits an pou their stocks an haud their Halloween!
Friday 30th October it was ‘our turn’ the merry, friendly, country folk of the Howff Club, to meet, for our Halloween supper, and what a great night we had.
On the website there Is full report, written in the Secretaries own inimitable style, so I wont go over the details again other than say a personal thanks to John Haining (main speaker) singers Jim Shields and David Pool, musicians Andy Kain and Michael Phillip and the amazing Alex Pool with his great recitations. All these gentlemen added a great amount to a special night for me and they were assisted by club members Frank Curran and Les Byres who were in equally good form. David, Michael, Andy and Jim were all making their debuts at the Howff and from the overwhelming applause they received I don’t think it will be too long until we see them back.
Michael Phillip is a champion accordionist and he also treated us to his favourite Burns poem ‘The lass who made the bed to me’. Michael and Andy were given a short tour of The Globe by Past President David Miller during the evening’s intervals.
Halloween is the start of the ‘winter season’ for the Club but there have been other happenings to report too., along various meetings to finalise the 2009 projects and two executive committee meetings
I attended ‘The Whistle’ competition on 16th October at Friars Carse. Also the ‘Sparkling Sopranos’ concert at St Georges Church Hall on 23rd and on Sunday 1st November after an afternoon of ‘proof reading’ the book of Scot’s poems written by school kids from Dumfries and Galloway and to be released at the Gala Concert, David Baird and David Smith and myself travelled to Applegarth Village Hall where Emily Smith was in concert and releasing her new album ‘A Doon Winding Nith’ solely of Burns songs and many of them written during his Dumfries years. Emily who was accompanied by her husband and fellow musician Jamie McClennan were awesome and the album is a MUST for any music and especially Burns Lovers, Claire Hastings from Holywood was the ‘warm up’ and hey what a great future Claire has, her singing was delightful and hopefully we will see more of her in the months and years to come. And how nice it was to see the small quaint village hall packed on what was a very wet and dreich night of weather. This was my second village hall event in a week as I had led the entertainment at Eaglesfield Hall on the Wednesday previous in a concert for hall funds.
‘Merry, friendly, country folk’ not only at Halloween, but every where I’ve been in recent weeks. Great times and looking forward to more as the events are mounting up in the diary.
JOHN M CASKIE
PRESIDENT
BURNS HOWFF CLUB