Nut Bowl empties....

A strange request has arrived in MrP’s inbox: his ex’s brer has been in touch, remembering his mastery of all thing computery (this was many years ago) and telling me that his ex’s father is suffering from dementia and wondering if I could go so far as burning one of those CD things. I remember him well - Bryan Down, a really nice bloke, and I once went watch his beloved Stockport County with him. That sent me scurrying off around the internet - he’d been a member of the Four Folk, a folk band of the early sixties, mostly covering Ewan MacColl songs judging by the single LP they made. And I found this lovely tribute to them written on a forum fifteen years ago:

I have no information on the Crows, but have fond memories of the Four Folk, as I was a member of their club when it was held at the Two Brewers pub on Regent Road in Salford. The band members, (Ash Lawrence,Peter Bowker, Bryan Down and Edward "Ted" Hardy), ran a wonderful club there, always teaching us new songs and encouraging us to sing, the last song of the evening was always "Dirty Old Town” softly sung by all in the room, you could almost have heard the proverbial pin drop, and it quite often almost made you cry it was so lovely. If you’re out there lads, thanks so much for giving us so many good nights, good songs and wonderful memories.
After such a lovely evening it was usually the six mile walk home to South Manchester as I had no transport at the time, and when they moved to Hyde (the club at Hyde United football club) it was more difficult to get to and I never went there.


As for the day, there was a trip up west end way to move things along, and a movie on Netflix: My Generation - the Michael Caine narrated film about the sixties; a great first half then it just fizzles into random late sixties stuff which Mr Caine really wasn’t much involved with or had much insight into - i.e. radical politics and drugs. As a teenager at the very end of the sixties I know it was all actually about collecting stamps, watching rocket launches and making Airfix kits of the planes of the ’67 Arab Israeli war. And great music had to await Marc Bolan.