Tynedale Accordion Club
by Tom Cowing
In years gone by, Tynedale was renowned for its eminence in the musical life of the North of England. In those golden days, not so long ago, each town, village and even small hamlet housed a brass band, a champion choir, or a ‘specialist dance orchestra’ (in the old days, bands specialised in certain dances and used to be advertised as ‘Quadrille Bands’ or ‘Waltz bands’) or some local artiste inspired with special vocal or instrumental talents.
In those days almost all music was ‘live’, every musical performance to however small a company was expressly to ‘please the ear’ and to encourage others to improve and perfect their skills in the art.
In the field of ‘traditional music’ which is accepted to be special province of those who are likely to read this paper, ‘Tynedale’ sad to say, has neglected itself in recent years. Only in remote country areas can a traditional danceband leader safely accept a booking feeling sure that he will do justice to the job and that the people who attend will go home happy and satisfied with an enjoyable dance.
Nucleus
A nucleus of enthusiasts and musicians met at the home of our Secretary, Mrs Doreen Jewitt, to discuss a course of action to enable us to bring about the formation of a Club based on Accordion and fiddle Club lines, firstly to give a platform to local ‘instrumentalists’, the ‘younger’ players in particular, and secondly to provide some live entertainment in Tynedale.
After an evening’s discussion, the ‘nucleus’ decided to advertise in the local paper that ‘For those interested in the formation of a Tynedale Accordion Club’ , ‘A meeting would be held in the Royal Hotel in Hexham on 22nd September, 1980’.
As a result of this advertisement a goodly number of interested people attended the inaugural meeting.
At this inaugural meeting 20 people attended and agreed to form themselves into a Committee. They were Mr J. Cockram, Mr T. Cowing, Mr N. Fullard, Mr E. Harding, Mr J. Hind, Mr & Mrs G. Jewitt, Mr C. MacKenzie, Mr J. Nicholson, Mrs J. Richardson, Mr E. Stewart, Mr W. Stewart, Mr & Mrs N. Silk, Mr A. Smith, Mr B. Stokoe, Mr & Mrs H. Thorp and Mr & Mrs R. Tulip.
This newly formed Committee decided to name this new venture the ‘Tynedale Accordion Flub’ and that it should be held on the first Tuesday of every month excepting July and August.
It was also agreed that Bert Shorthouse should be our first guest artiste. Bert has for many years been a great favourite and indeed a great friend to us in Tynedale and we are deeply indebted to him not only for such a successful launching, but for his services so freely given whenever advice on any musical subject in our field has even been needed in the past.
At this stage it is only right that we should pay tribute to Mr Peter Kemp and his staff of the Royal Hotel for all their good work and efforts to ‘help us along’. Mr Kemp is the most popular hotelier in Tynedale and as a Committee we are sure he will be pleased to see our appreciation in print and to let it be know that he is a Scotsman.
Opening
At our first night, on the first Tuesday in November, 1980, we were supported by nine instrumentalists who gave us a fine example of the high standard of our local musicians.
Our opening artiste was Mr Charlie Mackenzie, probably our best known local accordionist and dance band leader. The Royal Hotel ballroom was filled to capacity to hear Bert Shorthouse and the whole evening was an outstanding success.
The December ‘80 Club night was, to our delight, another full house. Our guest artiste was the talented but elusive accordionist Eric Goodfellow, who came with his Trio and gave us his own special brand of our own music of the Borders as only he can. We were supported this time by 13 local artistes.
January 1981 was a highly successful night when we played host to our good friends, Robert Whitehead and drummer Ian Wilson. True to form, Robert filled the house for us once again and musically ‘did us proud’. We were supported by eight local players this time.
Problems
February 1981 brought us seating problems when Jim Johnstone, with his five-piece band, came down. The room was almost full at seven o’clock and when Jim arrived at eight-thirty, he and his boys had a hard job to reach the stage.
Having set up in the interval, Jim and his band played the entire second half of the evening. Ten local musicians also entertained us on that evening.
On Saturday, 28th February, 1981, eight instrumentalists together with our Club chairman and compere Mr Eddie Harding and several Committee members provided the entertainment in the form of an Accordion Club in miniature for the residents of our local Leonard Cheshire Home at Matfen Hall. This proved to be very well received by the residents as it was something new to them as a form of entertainment.
Tuesday, 3rd March, 1981, brought us 15 local players, our highest number yet. Our guest artistes were Ian Holmes and Kenny Wilson.
As well as their traditional selections delivered in their own impeccable style, they treated us to some authentic Scandinavian music in the way in which it was originally intended to be heard.
Kenny certainly provided the authentic sound when he introduced his beautiful eight-stringed Hardanger violin from Scandinavia.
This was also the fourteenth birthday of one of our brightest young stars. Fiona Stewart is already a well known young figure in the Accordion Club scene and a highly successful competitor and winner of many local competitions and music festivals.
Fiona was presented with a bouquet and a local bandleader composed and played a new polka tune in her honour, names ‘Fiona’s Birthday’.
Our April ’81 Accordion club was supported by 12 local players when once again a capacity audience filled the ‘Royal’ ballroom to meet the popular Donaldson Brothers, who endeared themselves to us on their first visit to our part of the country.
Tuesday, 5th May, 1981, brought us a visit from a big man with a big heart, a great favourite in Tynedale, of course – Bill Black with his sons Robert and Duncan, with Alan Brown at the piano. This time we were grateful to nine local players who did their bit to entertain us.
Entertained
Tuesday, 2nd June, 1981, brought us Alex MacArthur, making his first visit to Hexham. Alex brought a quartet consisting of Ian Mearns, Ian Wilson and our old friend Bobby Colgan, making his first visit for ten years. We enjoyed a wonderful night’s entertainment from them. They played the whole second half of the evening, Alex and Bobby sang to us, told stories, ‘pulled our legs’, paid tribute to local players, eight of whom entertained us that evening, and generally gave us a most enjoyable evening to round off our first season.
Our current 1981/82 season began with a change from our regular first Tuesday night when on Wednesday, 2nd September, in our annual Town Fair Week, Roger Dobson, our well known Border button accordionist, and his quartet entertained us for the second half of the evening with a highly polished and energetic selection of music. Eight local artistes entertained us on this occasion.
In October we were back to our regular night, this time Tuesday 6th, when we were delighted to host Jim Dawson with his six-piece band. Jim’s big full band sound was greatly enjoyed and appreciated. This was Jim’s first visit to Hexham and we hope he enjoyed his night as much as we did. We were only sorry that Jim didn’t directly speak to the audience himself. Jim and his band played a full programme in the second half.
Lucky
We are lucky to have an excellent, quiet and attentive audience, and we do know that they like to feel that they know the guest artistes personally. Music can always stand on its own but it is also good policy to try to help the audience to feel that the artistes are accessible and are in fact ‘new friends’. Six local musicians played for our enjoyment on this evening.
In November we celebrated our first anniversary and George Stirrat and Jimmy Yeaman were our guest artistes.
The occasion was marked by the cutting of a cake by George and Jimmy, and Mr Jack Stephenson and Master Ian Stewart, the oldest regular member of the audience and one time bandleader, and the youngest accordionist respectively.
The photographer for our local weekly paper, the ‘Hexham Courant’ was in attendance to record the event which was duly reported in the weekend’s issue.
George and Jimmy gave us a very fine programme of music and an unforgettable evening of good fun. Seven local musicians were present and played for us on our anniversary night.
Popular
Tuesday, 1st December, 1981, again saw a full house when Iain MacPhail and his Trio honoured us with a visit. Iain is so popular down here that a good proportion of his programme consisted of music which had been requested by members of the audience. Iain may have felt that this restricted his musical presentation, but it is surely a compliment to ant artiste to receive requests. It proves that his work is already well appreciated and enjoyed.
This time the goodly number of 12 local artistes were kind enough to entertain us.
Our first Accordion Club of 1982 unfortunately did not take place. Kenny Thomson and his Band were all set to come south when a tremendous snowstorm enveloped the entire North of England. Roads were blocked, vehicles were stranded and the North of England ground to a frozen standstill.
We were forced to call it off and contact as many of our Committee members, local players and stalwart audience members as we could at a few hours’ notice, in the hope that they would pass the word around in order to stop other from coming out on that dreadful evening.
Despite our unfortunate bad weather cancellation in January, our February Accordion Club proved to be a sell-out. Our faithful and ‘good music hungry audience’ filled the room well in advance of our starting time of half past seven.
This time our guest artiste was Marian ‘Anderson’ (recently married). Marian played us a lovely and varied programme of music. She is a quiet and shy young lady. However, the warmth of her personality and the quality of her carefully planned programme impressed us all. Marian is high on our list for a return visit in the near future.
Regular
Our regular Club night on Tuesday, 2nd March ’82, brings us up to date when nine local musicians entertained us.
This being the eve of the birthday of our young local star, Fiona Stewart, a well known local bandleader played the polka ‘Fiona’s Birthday’, and proceeded to produce a bouquet of flowers from thin air for Fiona. His own magic seemed to turn on him, however, when during his rendering of the German ‘Goosey Goosey’ he was bedeviled by the appearance of a large web-footed bird which demonstrated its contempt for his playing by laying an egg!
The real magic began in the second half of the evening when Kenny Thomson and the Wardlaw SDB were our guest artistes.
For many years we in Tynedale have enjoyed and admired Kenny’s music and tried to book him for dances, but owing to previous engagements and other difficulties Kenny has hitherto been unable to come down. Even our January Accordion Club had to be called off because of the enormous falls of snow in the North of England.
At last Kenny made it! He and his boys carried us away with a perfection of musical sound, an unforgettable experience, well with waiting for!
We cannot speak too highly of Kenny and his Band for such an evening’s entertainment. We must say that we are very grateful to Kenny for his kindness to us by charging such a low fee.
We in Tynedale wish to thank all our past guest artistes, all of whom played for us for very, very reasonable fees. We do most sincerely thank them one and all and wish them all well.
We hope that all our guest artistes enjoyed their visits to Hexham and the Tynedale Accordion Club as much as we have enjoyed their playing and their entertainment.
Due to our efforts and the services of our guest artistes, we are quickly developing a new interest in traditional music. We have a great deal to offer from the Borders.
Useful
To help to add to our Club funds, with the help of our own local musicians, we have staged three Accordion Club dances, which helped to raise a useful sum of money to cover future expenses and the booking of future guest artistes.
It only now remains to list the names of our faithful local musicians, without whom we would not have an Accordion Club. They are
1) Mr Derek Archer
2) Mr Willie Atkinson
3) Mr Brian Armstrong
4) Miss Julie Best
5) Mr John Cockram
6) Miss Gail Common
7) Mr Jack Carruthers
8) Mr Frank Claffey
9) Mr Roger Dobson
10) Mr Eddie Dinning
11) Mr Charlie Ferguson and his brother
12) Mr Walter Ferguson
13) Mr Ron Heardman
14) Mr Hill (Northumbrian piper)
15) Mr Tommy Hughes
16) Mr Mike Irving
17) Miss Paula Johnstone
18) Mr Charlie Mackenzie
19) Mr Dennis Ossleton
20) Mr Jonny Peaden
21) Mr Henry Robson
22) Mr Donald Ridley
23) Miss Fiona Stewart
24) Master Ian Stewart
25) Mr Julian Scrachard
26) Mr Brian Stokoe
27) Mr Stewart Sneddon
28) Mrs Mary Stewart
29) Mr Roger Stewart
30) Mr Ken Tweedy
31) Mr Ray Tulip
32) Mr Herby Thorp
33) Mr George Vorce
34) Miss Jane Wooton
and 35) Miss Gillian Yellop.
Above all, we are most grateful to our compere, Mr Eddie Harding. His personality, his infectious love of music and all-round enthusiasm for live entertainment in general guarantees our success in our presentation of live musical entertainment to our public.
We set out to present a genuine live ‘instrumental’ musical show to our audience. So far we have been unbelievably successful.
We believe that the Club will only operate as well as it is organized, and we hope that our guest artistes have enjoyed their visits to Hexham as much as we have enjoyed their music.
Box and Fiddle
March 1982 Year 5 No 7
In those days almost all music was ‘live’, every musical performance to however small a company was expressly to ‘please the ear’ and to encourage others to improve and perfect their skills in the art.
In the field of ‘traditional music’ which is accepted to be special province of those who are likely to read this paper, ‘Tynedale’ sad to say, has neglected itself in recent years. Only in remote country areas can a traditional danceband leader safely accept a booking feeling sure that he will do justice to the job and that the people who attend will go home happy and satisfied with an enjoyable dance.
Nucleus
A nucleus of enthusiasts and musicians met at the home of our Secretary, Mrs Doreen Jewitt, to discuss a course of action to enable us to bring about the formation of a Club based on Accordion and fiddle Club lines, firstly to give a platform to local ‘instrumentalists’, the ‘younger’ players in particular, and secondly to provide some live entertainment in Tynedale.
After an evening’s discussion, the ‘nucleus’ decided to advertise in the local paper that ‘For those interested in the formation of a Tynedale Accordion Club’ , ‘A meeting would be held in the Royal Hotel in Hexham on 22nd September, 1980’.
As a result of this advertisement a goodly number of interested people attended the inaugural meeting.
At this inaugural meeting 20 people attended and agreed to form themselves into a Committee. They were Mr J. Cockram, Mr T. Cowing, Mr N. Fullard, Mr E. Harding, Mr J. Hind, Mr & Mrs G. Jewitt, Mr C. MacKenzie, Mr J. Nicholson, Mrs J. Richardson, Mr E. Stewart, Mr W. Stewart, Mr & Mrs N. Silk, Mr A. Smith, Mr B. Stokoe, Mr & Mrs H. Thorp and Mr & Mrs R. Tulip.
This newly formed Committee decided to name this new venture the ‘Tynedale Accordion Flub’ and that it should be held on the first Tuesday of every month excepting July and August.
It was also agreed that Bert Shorthouse should be our first guest artiste. Bert has for many years been a great favourite and indeed a great friend to us in Tynedale and we are deeply indebted to him not only for such a successful launching, but for his services so freely given whenever advice on any musical subject in our field has even been needed in the past.
At this stage it is only right that we should pay tribute to Mr Peter Kemp and his staff of the Royal Hotel for all their good work and efforts to ‘help us along’. Mr Kemp is the most popular hotelier in Tynedale and as a Committee we are sure he will be pleased to see our appreciation in print and to let it be know that he is a Scotsman.
Opening
At our first night, on the first Tuesday in November, 1980, we were supported by nine instrumentalists who gave us a fine example of the high standard of our local musicians.
Our opening artiste was Mr Charlie Mackenzie, probably our best known local accordionist and dance band leader. The Royal Hotel ballroom was filled to capacity to hear Bert Shorthouse and the whole evening was an outstanding success.
The December ‘80 Club night was, to our delight, another full house. Our guest artiste was the talented but elusive accordionist Eric Goodfellow, who came with his Trio and gave us his own special brand of our own music of the Borders as only he can. We were supported this time by 13 local artistes.
January 1981 was a highly successful night when we played host to our good friends, Robert Whitehead and drummer Ian Wilson. True to form, Robert filled the house for us once again and musically ‘did us proud’. We were supported by eight local players this time.
Problems
February 1981 brought us seating problems when Jim Johnstone, with his five-piece band, came down. The room was almost full at seven o’clock and when Jim arrived at eight-thirty, he and his boys had a hard job to reach the stage.
Having set up in the interval, Jim and his band played the entire second half of the evening. Ten local musicians also entertained us on that evening.
On Saturday, 28th February, 1981, eight instrumentalists together with our Club chairman and compere Mr Eddie Harding and several Committee members provided the entertainment in the form of an Accordion Club in miniature for the residents of our local Leonard Cheshire Home at Matfen Hall. This proved to be very well received by the residents as it was something new to them as a form of entertainment.
Tuesday, 3rd March, 1981, brought us 15 local players, our highest number yet. Our guest artistes were Ian Holmes and Kenny Wilson.
As well as their traditional selections delivered in their own impeccable style, they treated us to some authentic Scandinavian music in the way in which it was originally intended to be heard.
Kenny certainly provided the authentic sound when he introduced his beautiful eight-stringed Hardanger violin from Scandinavia.
This was also the fourteenth birthday of one of our brightest young stars. Fiona Stewart is already a well known young figure in the Accordion Club scene and a highly successful competitor and winner of many local competitions and music festivals.
Fiona was presented with a bouquet and a local bandleader composed and played a new polka tune in her honour, names ‘Fiona’s Birthday’.
Our April ’81 Accordion club was supported by 12 local players when once again a capacity audience filled the ‘Royal’ ballroom to meet the popular Donaldson Brothers, who endeared themselves to us on their first visit to our part of the country.
Tuesday, 5th May, 1981, brought us a visit from a big man with a big heart, a great favourite in Tynedale, of course – Bill Black with his sons Robert and Duncan, with Alan Brown at the piano. This time we were grateful to nine local players who did their bit to entertain us.
Entertained
Tuesday, 2nd June, 1981, brought us Alex MacArthur, making his first visit to Hexham. Alex brought a quartet consisting of Ian Mearns, Ian Wilson and our old friend Bobby Colgan, making his first visit for ten years. We enjoyed a wonderful night’s entertainment from them. They played the whole second half of the evening, Alex and Bobby sang to us, told stories, ‘pulled our legs’, paid tribute to local players, eight of whom entertained us that evening, and generally gave us a most enjoyable evening to round off our first season.
Our current 1981/82 season began with a change from our regular first Tuesday night when on Wednesday, 2nd September, in our annual Town Fair Week, Roger Dobson, our well known Border button accordionist, and his quartet entertained us for the second half of the evening with a highly polished and energetic selection of music. Eight local artistes entertained us on this occasion.
In October we were back to our regular night, this time Tuesday 6th, when we were delighted to host Jim Dawson with his six-piece band. Jim’s big full band sound was greatly enjoyed and appreciated. This was Jim’s first visit to Hexham and we hope he enjoyed his night as much as we did. We were only sorry that Jim didn’t directly speak to the audience himself. Jim and his band played a full programme in the second half.
Lucky
We are lucky to have an excellent, quiet and attentive audience, and we do know that they like to feel that they know the guest artistes personally. Music can always stand on its own but it is also good policy to try to help the audience to feel that the artistes are accessible and are in fact ‘new friends’. Six local musicians played for our enjoyment on this evening.
In November we celebrated our first anniversary and George Stirrat and Jimmy Yeaman were our guest artistes.
The occasion was marked by the cutting of a cake by George and Jimmy, and Mr Jack Stephenson and Master Ian Stewart, the oldest regular member of the audience and one time bandleader, and the youngest accordionist respectively.
The photographer for our local weekly paper, the ‘Hexham Courant’ was in attendance to record the event which was duly reported in the weekend’s issue.
George and Jimmy gave us a very fine programme of music and an unforgettable evening of good fun. Seven local musicians were present and played for us on our anniversary night.
Popular
Tuesday, 1st December, 1981, again saw a full house when Iain MacPhail and his Trio honoured us with a visit. Iain is so popular down here that a good proportion of his programme consisted of music which had been requested by members of the audience. Iain may have felt that this restricted his musical presentation, but it is surely a compliment to ant artiste to receive requests. It proves that his work is already well appreciated and enjoyed.
This time the goodly number of 12 local artistes were kind enough to entertain us.
Our first Accordion Club of 1982 unfortunately did not take place. Kenny Thomson and his Band were all set to come south when a tremendous snowstorm enveloped the entire North of England. Roads were blocked, vehicles were stranded and the North of England ground to a frozen standstill.
We were forced to call it off and contact as many of our Committee members, local players and stalwart audience members as we could at a few hours’ notice, in the hope that they would pass the word around in order to stop other from coming out on that dreadful evening.
Despite our unfortunate bad weather cancellation in January, our February Accordion Club proved to be a sell-out. Our faithful and ‘good music hungry audience’ filled the room well in advance of our starting time of half past seven.
This time our guest artiste was Marian ‘Anderson’ (recently married). Marian played us a lovely and varied programme of music. She is a quiet and shy young lady. However, the warmth of her personality and the quality of her carefully planned programme impressed us all. Marian is high on our list for a return visit in the near future.
Regular
Our regular Club night on Tuesday, 2nd March ’82, brings us up to date when nine local musicians entertained us.
This being the eve of the birthday of our young local star, Fiona Stewart, a well known local bandleader played the polka ‘Fiona’s Birthday’, and proceeded to produce a bouquet of flowers from thin air for Fiona. His own magic seemed to turn on him, however, when during his rendering of the German ‘Goosey Goosey’ he was bedeviled by the appearance of a large web-footed bird which demonstrated its contempt for his playing by laying an egg!
The real magic began in the second half of the evening when Kenny Thomson and the Wardlaw SDB were our guest artistes.
For many years we in Tynedale have enjoyed and admired Kenny’s music and tried to book him for dances, but owing to previous engagements and other difficulties Kenny has hitherto been unable to come down. Even our January Accordion Club had to be called off because of the enormous falls of snow in the North of England.
At last Kenny made it! He and his boys carried us away with a perfection of musical sound, an unforgettable experience, well with waiting for!
We cannot speak too highly of Kenny and his Band for such an evening’s entertainment. We must say that we are very grateful to Kenny for his kindness to us by charging such a low fee.
We in Tynedale wish to thank all our past guest artistes, all of whom played for us for very, very reasonable fees. We do most sincerely thank them one and all and wish them all well.
We hope that all our guest artistes enjoyed their visits to Hexham and the Tynedale Accordion Club as much as we have enjoyed their playing and their entertainment.
Due to our efforts and the services of our guest artistes, we are quickly developing a new interest in traditional music. We have a great deal to offer from the Borders.
Useful
To help to add to our Club funds, with the help of our own local musicians, we have staged three Accordion Club dances, which helped to raise a useful sum of money to cover future expenses and the booking of future guest artistes.
It only now remains to list the names of our faithful local musicians, without whom we would not have an Accordion Club. They are
1) Mr Derek Archer
2) Mr Willie Atkinson
3) Mr Brian Armstrong
4) Miss Julie Best
5) Mr John Cockram
6) Miss Gail Common
7) Mr Jack Carruthers
8) Mr Frank Claffey
9) Mr Roger Dobson
10) Mr Eddie Dinning
11) Mr Charlie Ferguson and his brother
12) Mr Walter Ferguson
13) Mr Ron Heardman
14) Mr Hill (Northumbrian piper)
15) Mr Tommy Hughes
16) Mr Mike Irving
17) Miss Paula Johnstone
18) Mr Charlie Mackenzie
19) Mr Dennis Ossleton
20) Mr Jonny Peaden
21) Mr Henry Robson
22) Mr Donald Ridley
23) Miss Fiona Stewart
24) Master Ian Stewart
25) Mr Julian Scrachard
26) Mr Brian Stokoe
27) Mr Stewart Sneddon
28) Mrs Mary Stewart
29) Mr Roger Stewart
30) Mr Ken Tweedy
31) Mr Ray Tulip
32) Mr Herby Thorp
33) Mr George Vorce
34) Miss Jane Wooton
and 35) Miss Gillian Yellop.
Above all, we are most grateful to our compere, Mr Eddie Harding. His personality, his infectious love of music and all-round enthusiasm for live entertainment in general guarantees our success in our presentation of live musical entertainment to our public.
We set out to present a genuine live ‘instrumental’ musical show to our audience. So far we have been unbelievably successful.
We believe that the Club will only operate as well as it is organized, and we hope that our guest artistes have enjoyed their visits to Hexham as much as we have enjoyed their music.
Box and Fiddle
March 1982 Year 5 No 7