General News

The Fleece Bretforton

This year marks the 29th year that I have been involved in fund raising for The Tracy Sollis Leukaemia Trust. My God where have those years gone! Obviously two years were taken out during Covid and times when my health issues got in the way but it’s still astonishing to me how long it has been since dear Tracy left us.

With her passing her remarkable mother Sue has done life changing work for people who are struck down by this dreadful disease. Obviously one would wish that these concerts and fund raising in her name hadn’t happened and this beautiful girl had survived to this day but the cruelty of life sadly isn’t like that.

The concert on the evening was the first time I had invited guests along and who better than Carrie Martin and Adam Parrish. Needless to say the audience loved it and so did Adam and Carrie. It was lovely to see special friends there like Cathryn Worth and daughter Carrie and others like our friend Nicky from those early heady days of Heathcliff. May Hines was also there from Welcome Radio. May had interviewed myself and Carrie on a number of occasions.

My thanks go to Nigel at The Fleece for once again providing the venue for us and his hospitality and a special thanks to Dave Ford for driving all the way from Derby with his superb sound system so we had a great sound on the night.

God willing we shall repeat the event next year with the same line-up.

The wonderful news is that £1500 was raised on the evening from ticket sales and raffle money.

Robin Valk

I was so sad to hear of the passing of one of our great broadcasters Robin Valk. I spoke to him a few months ago and he told me he was very I’ll and couldn’t meet up for a chat about Scattered Chapters.

If you look back at past new pages around three years ago it gives info about our lovely interview and links to his blog.

RIP dear chap.

Scattered Chapters and The Last of England available to download

Both of these albums are now available to download from the usual places. Please follow the links from their discography section entries:

Scattered Chapters: Scattered Chapters CD and Book | Gordon Giltrap

The Last of England: The Last Of England - Gordon Giltrap - CDs

Gigs last month

Private Concert

I had three other gigs last month one of them being a private concert in Swindon at The Great Western Railway Museum a wonderful venue for a concert. I was booked by a company that supply materials to woodworkers and for anyone working in wood etc. The event was an exhibition of creations made out of wood.

See some of the images I took and the objects are beautiful. Anyway I was the musical entertainment from the evening and it was real joy and culminated in a standing ovation at the end of the show so the old Troubadour must have done good. My thanks to Terry the organiser for looking after me so well.

Hilderstone Village Hall

This was an interesting gig because I was still recovering from Covid along with my beloved Hilary but all went well and it was nice to see old friends Mark and Jane Day there along David and family from Nottingham also Malc Welch with Karen and Gary Hudson with Lorraine.

In spite of being slightly under par I played ok and once again got a standing ovation a regular occurrence these days….hope they aren’t clapping out of pity !!!!! THANKS to Andy for making it happen!

West Kirby Arts Centre

This is the gig that had to be rescheduled because of Covid. When the date was first booked they had sold 50 tickets. At the rescheduled one it was sold out!!!

West Kirby on the Wirral is a delightful location but sadly I didn’t have time to visit the beach. The venue was beautiful. It was originally a Unitarian Chapel. Tony and Deborah bought both the chapel and the church hall next door a while back and lovingly restored both, the hall is now their home.

Once again a lovely audience and reception with a standing ovation at the end. Sadly the couple will be retiring from the promotion side of things but the venue can still be hired privately.

New Guitar

Yes I have been at it again!

Bought from a car boot sale ages ago but just got round to fixing it.

This budget Aria laminate top acoustic was covered in Beatles stickers and the finish was flaking off so I stripped the front down and the neck and finally got it to play, and guess what, it sounds pretty good. It even came with a pickup and tone and volume controls that plugged into my effects unit sounds ridiculously good. That’s not to say I’m going to be gigging with it but it keeps me out of mischief restoring old wrecks. You can still see the ghost of the Beatle stickers that were on here. I have no idea of the age but it could be twenty years old.

A few sunny days with friends

A huge thankyou to Andy and Jenny Smy for looking after us so well when we spent a few days with them in beautiful North Devon.

Here is yours truly serenading their friends at their barbecue on the Friday.

Zoom Teaching

Nature has kindly bestowed on me the gift of music and a smattering of creativity and this gift needs to be shared and in so sharing hopefully inspire the recipient of that sharing experience hence the title SHARING DAYS that I have used for some time now.

Since Covid the only way forward to teach has been via Zoom and I have grown to love it, and to see the fruits of these lessons flower and come to life is a real joy.

Join me if you can for a Zoom sharing experience by contacting Paul Roberts.

All enquiries about online guitar sessions should be made to Paul Roberts at pcrguitar@gmail.com or call him direct on 07860 648068

Another new guitar

Yes, I know what you’re thinking yet another guitar but I couldn’t resist this charming vintage Kasuga Flamenco guitar from probably the 70’s at such a bargain price of £99! Bought from Old Hat Guitars in Horncastle Lincolnshire whilst visiting family.

It’s a very pretty guitar with nice woods and a lovely headstock. I couldn’t find any information about this particular model on the internet so guess it’s quite rare! The action is a tad high for a flamenco guitar so I’m still trying to figure out how to make it play better and then hopefully find a place for it on some future recording…. who knows.

As you can see by the photos its lovely thing. The traditional woods used for Flamenco guitars is normally spruce for the top and cypress pine back and sides which this instrument appears to have apart from the top that is of lovely cedar my favourite wood of choice for any guitar. It has geared machine heads instead of the usual wooden pegs which can be a tad difficult to use if you’re not used to them which I’m not and I’m not sure it was made like this. Either way it makes tuning easier! It has also suffered some damage to the right hand side upper bout which someone has lovely repaired and painted it to sort of match the sides. The previous owner must have cherished it and there is also a tiny medieval lion badge glued to the table. It would be fascinating to know the history of this sweet little guitar!

It also has the see through Golpe or scratch plate which tells me it is definitely a flamenco guitar and not a classical one. You can’t really see the Golpe clearly unless you look really hard. I have always been fascinated by the look of the Golpe which I find quite attractive and have done since a teenager.

Hope you like the pics taken in the garden of my sister in laws against this lovely tree.