Brian Dalton looks back over 60 years of Croydon Folk Club

"When I first met my wife, Jenny Collins as she was then, it was through Crystal Palace football supporters and had nothing to do with folk music. I quickly realised that Jenny had a real commitment to folk clubs locally, there were, probably, four, but had lost her favourite which had met at The Swan and Sugarloaf pub in South Croydon. We eventually landed at the Croydon Folk Club at The Waddon Hotel with the ever-present Maureen Wilson on the door.

Croydon Folk Club started in The Grange at Thornton Heath and moved to The Waddon Hotel in about 1970. One of our founders was Chris Woods. Peter Twitchett took over the running of the club and was later joined by Graham Maisey. Luckily we still have recordings of both of them from around that time, taken from a Radio Medway programme made at the club in 1977. Also on the recording are Grant and Sue Rule who were other stalwarts of the club. Les Elvin remembers that time fondly - except for the fire, which heated one side of singers while the other side froze!

In 1980, the club moved from the Waddon Hotel to The Ship in Croydon High Street. At the same time as the move, the club’s ‘resident’ performers went up to the National Theatre in London and did a foyer performance, with each member doing a few songs. Club residents Grant and Sue Rule also produced a cassette tape around that time called Folk’s All, which was recorded during a club evening. During the Ship years, a committee was formed to run the club and, in 1982, Radio Medway came and again recorded a programme at one of the club evenings. Peter Bond was our guest performer that evening. Phil Revnell recalls the need for good timing at The Ship because the town hall clock was a few metres away and struck all the quarters! Rita Cherriman, also a long-time member, became a de facto organiser within an organising committee. This was quite an exciting time for all of us, but the next really interesting event was the development of a festival nearby.

The Fairfield Folk Festival started in 1981 and for a while was run by Croydon resident, Jim Lloyd, who had the folk slot on Radio 2 at the time. Jim encouraged the club to take a more exposed spot at the festival by doing presentations on the main stage. He also drove the move to the Arnham Gallery at Fairfield in early 1985. Among those presentations were ones on Surrey Street Market and Croydon Fair (hence fair field) with specially written pieces by Crys Rothon. These presentations were replicated elsewhere with Jim Lloyd narrating. The club prospered during the festival years and, using the whole Arnham Gallery, was able to accommodate larger audiences for the likes of Martin Simpson, The Kipper Family and Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick on their first reunion tour. Barn dances were also well attended and it was a pivotal moment when the festival came to an end in 1990. During this time Jez Lowe became a club regular.

The 1990s show a very gradual decline in audience numbers at the folk club, with no overriding cause. The club took up residence in the Fairfield Bar, with occasional forays back to the Arnham Gallery for more star acts. In 1995, a cassette tape was produced of residents entitled In Residence, to celebrate the 30th year. Rita Cherriman continued booking acts and accommodating them and has many fond memories. Long time partner, Chris Roche, recalls: “Cosmotheka would always have port and stilton when they stayed and, on one occasion, The High Level Ranters had their hair cut in the kitchen - by Rita, of course.” Rita was well known for her rendition of Shallow Brown, had won Singer Of The Year at the National Folk Festival in 1990 and had knocked The Shanty Crew into shape over many years. When the club made its most recent move to Ruskin House, Rita, although gravely ill at the time, showed great determination to make the move succeed. She left us in 2000, shortly after the move, and is still sadly missed.

In 1999, club chairman, Mike Rothon, had realised that change was required and I took over some of the bookings, my wife Jenny became musical director with Phil Revnell as treasurer and Jeanne Revnell accommodation hostess. Les Elvin, an accomplished performer in his own right, offered support with PA requirements. We gave the club a more modern ‘corporate’ image while retaining the traditional nature of our club presentations. The move to Ruskin House had reduced costs and given us a breathing space to rededicate the club to its existing and new members. We try to give members the acts they like, while improving the overall experience that visitors can expect. Contemporary singer songwriters rub shoulders with long standing acts in the tradition. We replicated the historical presentations in multi-media format under the title Aspects Of Croydon, with LB Croydon funding, and had a healthy following for our Burns Night and Shakespeare Night supper dances, all run and performed by residents and regulars.

After 10 years at Ruskin House, various artists (including Martin Simpson, Clive Gregson and Maire Ni Chathasaigh and Chris Newman) gave tracks for a special CD to mark the first decade, which is still available. As we completed 50 years in total, the club produced a CD of members’ performances, Croydon Voices: Croydon Folk Club 1965-2015 (available via Bandcamp), which spread over the whole period. Some of the recordings were on cassette tapes and were upgraded by Mike Rothon and the result is a great record of the songs and characters who form the history of our club. We’ve now, post covid, completed another ten years and the club has had to morph into a smaller entity, cutting our cloth as it were. For dances we support the efforts of local friends Carshalton Ceilidhs. We share a webpage with all the Ruskin House music events on the Folk and Honey website and are, increasingly, cashless through the advent of internet banking. And, as we move forward, introduce new and exciting acts to replace those lost to the ravages of time while keeping the quality high. Symbolizing this handover Clive Gregson and Liz Simcock got together to tour.

We take each season as it comes and, like a slender willow. bend with the proverbial. Mondays at 8 as usual check the websites or catch us on Facebook

See you soon keeping it live."

Brian Dalton

www.croydonfolkclub.org.uk

Top row L-R: The Waddon / Fairfield Halls / Ruskin House

Bottom row L-R: Phil & Jeanne Revnell, Singers and Club Hosts / Les Elvin. Singer, Guitarist and Soundman / Jenny Dalton. Singer and Musical Director