As promised, here is the tale behind the circumstances which ended up with me attending the Folk Awards. It’s a bit overdue thanks to all the work i’ve been under since then but read on and you’ll understand why. It’s also pretty long, you might need a tea break half-way through. Apologies if it gets boring but i assure you it was a lot more boring for me at the time…
Sunday
1st Feb (the day before the Folk Awards) – I set out from my native Croydon with my bandmates Jon and Simon to play a gig at The Marlborough, Camberwell (some of you might be familiar with Jon, he works here at Proper and sometimes writes on this blog. When he does it’s inevitably more entertaining than when i do). We have been asked to do an acoustic show which turns our usual line-up of Ten Foot Nun into the slightly more hilariously titled Ten Foot Nunplugged. My favourite advantage of this setup is that there a lot less things to carry around on the train (for me, drummer boy, this means i have a couple less cymbals to carry round but still a snare drum and bass drum pedal).
Feeling lucky that we just caught the train, we then spend more than half an hour waiting for a bus at Peckham. It turns out that the bus ride is about 5 minutes so we could have walked there, if we’d known which direction to walk in.
We arrive at the venue to find the band we’re playing with, punk-rock-circus-pronk-ska-metal-jazz-magic-fusion 6-piece The Display Team, also just arriving (they’re very good, check them out). They are also doing an acoustic set tonight, their first ever. Anyway, things happen, we get set up and sound checked blah blah blah. It turns out there is a snare drum and bass drum pedal there after all, so that’s two things i didn’t need to bring with me in the first place.
I notice that it’s started snowing outside (you can probably guess where it’s going from here…) so i go out to look at how nice everything looks in the snow. It’s all very pretty but shortly after this that we are told that, due to a miscommunication, we are due to go onstage very late; if we’re lucky we’d be able to do 15 minutes on-stage before taking 0 minutes to pack up and running to the station for the last train.
So, during the marvelous Display Team’s excellent set, the decision (which we’re not proud of) is made that we need to go. The snow is piling up and it’s a Sunday so the trains aren’t exactly coming every 5 minutes, we’ve got to get home so we can come into work on time and bright-eyed and bushy tailed the next day (as we do every day), and so on and so forth.
So, rather annoyed that we’re trudging around in the snow with guitars, drums etc in unfamiliar surroundings having not just played the show we were asked to, we go back to Peckham Rye Station. But our train back to Croydon has been cancelled! Not to worry, we think with our collective band brain. We can get a train to Victoria and then get back from there.
After not a huge amount of time we are in Victoria station in the centre of London (if you’re unfamiliar with where all these places are, there’s a map at the end of this article. But make sure you read the whole story first!). But it’s not a problem, trains run regularly from Victoria to East Croydon all through the night. You even get fast ones which don’t stop at every station. Unless it’s snowing heavily, in which case they get as far as the bridge less than 2 minutes out of the station then spend about 20 minutes trying to get over it before turning back to Victoria.
In what, in hindsight, was not a particularly good idea we then got on another train. There was no mention of the fact that three trains had already failed to get over the bridge until we were on the train and the doors were shut. But it was okay, this train had just got into the station so the engine had been running and was still warm, unlike the previous three which were cold so this one would have more success, right?
Wrong. And this time it was an even longer wait on the train. The announcement comes from the driver that we’re going back to Victoria but this time we’re going to join up with another four coaches which will give us more engine power to get over the bridge. By this time we’d had enough of sitting on trains so decided to get off, although this process was hindered by the 10 minute period between the train getting back into the station, joining up with the other coaches and the doors opening, allowing us off.
Perhaps the buses were running from outside? No! The entire bus stop outside Victoria has been cordoned off. We think, what’s the worst that can happen if we get back on the train? So we run back to the platform, only to find it speeding off just as we get there.
So in the absence of any other plans, we start walking. We seem to be heading in the general direction of Charing Cross, so we go there to see if anything’s running. We arrive at a very empty looking station, with the notice boards devoid of any welcome news. So we leave again; we think, if we can get to Waterloo, south of the river, we might be in with a chance.
During this little jaunt our spirits are quite high. Here are some pictures:
1:10am, when i should have been tucked up in bed.
Ten Foot Nun on Westminster Bridge, 1:15am
Ten Foot Nun in front of The London Eye and a snowman, 1:20am
(Pictures taken on my phone, hence not very good)
So it was slightly disappointing, although not entirely unexpected, that Waterloo was also closed, although they had engineering works that were going on independent of the disruption from the weather.
So after a great deal of walking we were still stuck at square 1 (or, if you count distance travelled away from where we wanted to be going, square -2). Waiting for a taxi didn’t help either, as we were soon told the road was closed. The option we were offered was to sleep in the warm and relative comfort of a ‘beached’ train sitting on platform 6.
After sitting on the train for about two minutes, Jon stands up and shouts, “Sod this, I’m too old to be sleeping on a train. I’m going to find a hotel,” although he may have used a different word to ’sod’. Neither Simon nor I can be bothered to move. So Jon disappears into the station.
After a few hours of being pretty uncomfortable on this train and drifting in and out of consciousness, rather than getting any real sleep, we get told by a member of rail staff that the station is now open again (ie. get off the train). (In fairness, i should point out that all the rail staff i came across during this adventure were all very helpful, although this is probably because i wasn’t screaming at them expecting them to do impossible things for my convienience.)
Monday
So it’s 5:30am, officially Monday which means of course we need to get a new Travelcard. Hopefully things will be better today and we can get home…
For those of you who remember i’m due up in London later for the Folk Awards pre-party at Foyles bookstore which we might have mentioned once or twice before the event. Simon, on the other hand, needs to get back to Croydon so he can start work at 9am. So we see if we can get back to Croydon. I’m certainly not smelling my best and could do with brushing my teeth. So at about 6am we see there’s a train going to Reading, which looks promising. We get on and get off at the next stop, Clapham Junction. You can always get a train back to East Croydon from Clapham Junction.
We run into one of my mates from Croydon, Al Mighty (he’s a hip-hop DJ), who tells me he has been waiting for a train for 10 hours. This doesn’t bode well. Still, we wait around for a bit, have a bit of a walk round and eventually the Gatwick Express drives past. This is good news because normally the Gatwick Express stops at Clapham Junction and East Croydon; okay, this one hasn’t stopped but at least there’s a train running along this line. And according to Al, this is the first train he’s seen for about 5 hours, so again, good news.
Times really are pretty vague for me round about now but at about, let’s say, 7am a train turns up heading towards our promised land. We inwardly cry with joy, although remain somewhat sceptical. It’s a slow train, there are about eleven stops to Croydon but if we get there it’ll be worth it. We get as far as Balham (two stops) before we’re told we’re not going any further.
Luckily the Northern Line is running. In fact the underground, at least from this angle and at this time in the morning, looks fairly uninterrupted. So the plan is: Simon gets the tube to London Bridge, another station which is a harbinger to regular Croydon-visiting trains; while i get off at Tottenham Court Road and head straight up to Foyles. I’m clearly not going to get home, go to work and get to the bookstore for the show so I prioritise and head straight there, even if it means i have to hang around for three hours.
[I've just looked up and seen how long i've been typing. I'll try and keep it short]
I arrive at Foyles bang on 8am, which any other day is when it would open. Luckily i have a newspaper with me. This prevents me from getting bored while waiting around in the cold for half an hour. I’m sure i’ve never seen Tottenham Court Road look this empty so i’m guessing no-one’s going to turn up. But i am wrong, the duty manager turns up to explain that the staff are having immense trouble getting in and no-one knows when anyone will get there. He says he’ll call me if they open.
I ring Jon, who’s been organising the pre-party to keep him updated. After about an hour i get through. It turns out that last night/this morning he’d walked as far as Oval before finding a taxi. Using his immense genius he got the driver to take him to the hotel where all the Folk Awards attendees are staying. He gives me directions and i walk there.
I meet Jon at the hotel and for the first time in over twelve hours i can put my drum stuff down and not have to keep an eye on it all. I can also have a shower, which is very refreshing.
So our gig is very much snowed off, it would appear. Luckily Jon has seen quite a few of the folkies who were due to play at the hotel and the rest he contacted by phone. I spent about an hour looking for a computer with internet access so i could warn people that the gig was off. I found no such machines.
In the meantime, Simon had rejoined us back at the hotel. He had been waiting for a train for four hours before being told that there were definitely no trains going to Croydon that day. However, Jon had managed to swindle him a place at the Folk Awards due to the inability for some of the invitees to attend, even though he isn’t involved in the folk music industry (although he did go to school with Sam, Seth and Sean Lakeman and Cara Dillon). He’s also managed to blag us two in (working in the marketing department for the largest folk distributor in the country under normal circumstances wouldn’t qualify you worthy of entrance).
At some point along here we find out that Foyles has opened after all, albeit with a skeleton staff (as in there are not many of them, not the shop is being manned by skeletons). So we ask them to put signs up apologising for the lack of show in case people turn up and think we were trying to swindle them into coming to a bookstore to see a gig and were hiding in a room somewhere in the building with CCTV monitors pointing and laughing at them.
So, willing to help out in any way possible, rather than sitting round twiddling our thumbs, we finally head to The Brewery where security is as i described it previously. Luckily we are now authorised so we avoid being mangled by the guard beasts. So we help out for a bit then go for a quick drink and come back in time for the awards.
The Awards
So finally, we come to the award show. As we walk through the door and deposit our jackets we are greeted by the sounds of Young Folk Award Finalists Emily Hoile (clàrsach) and Alice Burn (Northumbrian smallpipes).
A small flight of stairs leads up to the reception room where there is free food and booze. All i’ll say is that there was a lamb and mash dish which was really, really, really tasty. Whilst in the same room we (Ten Foot Nun) had our picture taken by a BBC photographer, although disappointingly the pictures have yet to emerge on the BBC website.
At some point during this reception, before the awards start, aforementioned Emily and Alice now brave the stage in the reception room. If you ask anyone else there they might not corroborate my story on this because it appears that i’m the only person who’s noticed (like the Independent for example, who only spotted a harpist). It’s disappointing to see that the “industry” people there to support the awards and all this new folk music can’t keep their mouths shut, or even just keep their voices down, for ten minutes to listen to some of the new music they’re supposed to be supporting, leaving the two girls on stage playing to an almost entirely indifferent crowd. From what i can hear they’re very good but it takes careful listening to isolate them from the overwhelming chatter.
We take our seats in the main room where the awards are taking place. We are seated with the nice chaps from The Magpie’s Nest and David Suff from Fledg’ling Records, when the two afore-mentioned girls join our table too. We consider this unfortunate, as it looks like we were going to have to behave ourselves.
I won’t go into detail about the awards, they have been covered in plenty of other places. I’ll just say that i particularly liked the bits where Ade Edmonson, Harry Shearer and Rob Brydon were presenting. The stand-out performance for me though was Chris Wood, performing the hilariously titled The Cottager’s Reply (you can see video footage of all the performers by following this link).
After the show i congratulate Emily and Alice, restraining myself not to break into the rant of the previous paragraph as it would have undoubtedly resulted in all the obscenities i’ve tried very hard not to include here.
We are all very excited that there is a member of Bad News and Spinal Tap in the building but while the rest of my band gets to meet and have a gratuitous photo opportunity with Ade Edmonson, i’m busy carting around CDs and trying to organise a lift for my drum kit.
L->R: Ten Foot Jon, Adrian "Two Beers" Edmonson, Ten Foot Simon. I have no idea who took the picture.
So after that we go to the hotel. We talk to the various nominees and other artists, who are all very nice. Simon goes to bed at a fairly reasonable hour while Jon and i get drunk and end up looking like this:
L->R: Lee from the Demon Barbers, Ten Foot Andy, Ten Foot Jon
(I found this photo on facebook and strongly suspect it was taken by James Dumbelton, a multi stringed instrument player who’s worked with Jim Causley and Jackie Oates. I might have even spoken to him, i’ve no idea.)
After the bar shuts at 3am i go to bed.
Tuesday
[If you just wanted to hear about the Folk Awards, i'm done now but if you're hear to read about how long it took me to get home, there's a bit left.]
Simon and i get woken up at about 6am by Jon banging on the door. Apparently he has just been to Walthamstow and has no recollection of how he got there. If anyone reading this can cast any light on how this happened he’d be very grateful to find out. So would i if it’s particularly scandalous.
I get woken up again at 9:47am (i’m supposed to start work at 9:00am) with a message from Drew, my boss:
“Are you coming in? Buses and trains are running again.”
Fantastic! Buses and trains are running again, this means i can get home! So before you can say, “Jon, the buses and trains are running again, are you going to come to work with me?” he’s out the door on his way home. More specifically, he’s out the door before i’ve finished the second half of the sentence. We leave shortly afterwards.
We walk to Old Street tube station and go to London Bridge. Which is the only train running? The Croydon one! But it leaves in about 2 minutes so Simon runs off. I however am going to work in Sydenham, wither not a train runneth.
So it looks like it’ll be a series of buses for me, which it is as i get the 21 to Lewisham and the 185 to somewhere near where i work. I walk the rest. I get in to work at 1:30pm.
At some point during this both Simon and Jon get home safely. Woo hoo!
Because our UPS pick-up service has been affected, we get to go home at 4:30pm. Woo hoo again! Except the trams, how i usually get home (we have trams in Croydon, don’t you know?) still aren’t running. This isn’t an immense problem, there’s a bus stop about 15 minutes down the road that i can get a 75 back from.
So i walk to the bus stop and just as i’m about to get there i realise there’s another bus stop a bit further down the road. I’ve never been to this one before but it looks less crowded so i walk to that one. I find out the reason i’ve never been to that one before is because the 75 doesn’t stop there. But there’s another one up the road…
About 4 bus stops and 15 minutes later i’ve realised why the 75 goes so fast along this stretch of road. I know there’s one along here where it’ll stop for sure (if the buses are still running) but as i’m getting closer i can’t help thinking to myself, this bus is going to drive past me any moment. And it does.
It’d make for better reading if i’d missed the bus but i legged it and got on, without even falling flat on my face with the now compacted snow which was more like ice. Eventually i got back to Croydon and stopped off at the Dragon for a quick one, which was as good as being at home.
(The routes aren’t precise but the waypoints are fairly accurate)
Click here to get back to the main page
Other things that happened involved Martin Simpson turning up a couple of times. He was jolly nice and complimented us on our hard work. He and his wife (whose name i didn’t catch but was also jolly nice) brought along a bunch of Folk Against Fascism t-shirts for us to sell. We ran out pretty quickly, although from September 1st the website will go live and you’ll be able to get a t-shirt of your own. (Their young daughter was also a fan of the waving cat we brought with us.)
Drew Hill
Esther Tewkesbury
Jon Roffey
stevekersley
simon holland
andy kiang
Dean Owens
folkboy
lisa goodall
jamiehalliday
