The live study day in Gloucester on Saturday 13 May was well attended and those who took part told us that they had enjoyed the event and found it useful. This was despite the train strikes which prevented some people attending, including our principal speaker, Steve Roud. Some hastily arranged technical work-arounds allowed him to take part in the meeting via Zoom, though it was not possible or him to play all the examples of songs that he had planned. Difficulties with interconnections meant that, while the sound in the room was fine, the recordings of the meeting were not up to an acceptable standard. For this reason, we will not be putting them up on our YouTube channel.
We are grateful to those who spoke at the meeting, including Carol Davies, Richard Spencer, and Heather Forbes. As you will have seen above, Richard’s interesting paper on Alfred Williams’ sole surviving notebook is being repeated in next month’s TSF Online meeting. We are particularly grateful to Heather Forbes, the Head Archivist at the Gloucestershire Archives and her staff for allowing us to use the meeting room in the Heritage Hub, and for technical help. Heather’s tour of the archive and her talk on items of interest in the archive were greatly appreciated.
Thanks are also due to Robin Burton and his colleagues at ‘The Folk of Gloucester’ for hosting an enjoyable song session in the evening.