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Gigs Postponed …

We are both sorry and delighted to tell you that two of our summer gigs have been postponed. Sorry, because we were looking forward to playing out this summer, and delighted, because those same gigs will be happening in summer 2021:

Folk at the Boat, Ipswich: postponed to June 2021 – date to be confirmed

Chickenstock, Stockbury, Kent: 23rd July 2021 – and, if you buy your festival tickets before 23rd July this year, you will be paying 2020 prices! Go to the festival website for full details: https://www.chickenstockfestival.co.uk/

So far, our own Autumn Gathering is set to go ahead at the Olde Smack, Leigh on Sea on 19th September – we’ll keep you posted.

Ahoy there! We be setting sail! 2020 Gigs

After a quiet end to 2019, during which one of our crew had to have her head sewn back on after a skirmish – you should have seen the others! – we are sailing again in 2020. These are confirmed so far:

Sunday June 7th: Folk At The Boat, New Cut, Ipswich. Plunderin’ time to be advised.

Friday July 24th: we are delighted to be given boarding rights to CHICKENSTOCK Festival. We’ll be playing on the Friday evening. See the festival website for more details!

Saturday September 19th: AUTUMN GATHERING at Ye Olde Smack, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. This is fast becoming a fixture! Celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day in true pirate style! We can warmly recommend the hospitality on offer at Ye Olde Smack.

Keep yer eyes peeled…..there may well be others…….

Ahoy there! Forthcoming pillaging dates! 19th and 21st August 2018!

The Captain and Crew are pleased to announce that we will be sailing this year on board the good ship FolkEast 2018.  Follow this link to find out more about this smashing festival: https://folkeast.co.uk/

Look for us on the Soapbox Stage, in the woods, at dead of night on Sunday 19th August.  10 pm start!

Also:

Tuesday 21st August:  The Hoy at Anchor Folk Club, The Royal British Legion

7/9 Northview Drive, Westcliff-on-Sea, SS0 9NG.  Pillaging starts at around 7.30 pm.

Arrr! Now for Brixham!

Brixham Pirate Festival 2018 will soon be upon us!  After a weekend on the grog we will be playing on the Main Stage at 11 am on Monday 7th May.  We will be commencing our weekend of pirate fun and debauchery at The Old Coaching Inn, 61 Fore Street, on the evening of Friday 4th May.  Come and see us for real songs about real pirates! From 8.30 pm onwards.

Tomorrow is 15th April 2018

Which might be a statement of the blindingly obvious, but you need to know that (most of) Captain Morgan’s Rum Do will be performing a short set for …

Southend Folk & Ale Festival 2018

On Saturday 14th & Sunday 15th April 2018
on behalf of Southend on Sea Borough Council,
The Hoy at Anchor Folk Club is organising a Free Folk Festival
in aid of The Leigh Folk Festival Association at The Royal Pavilion on Southend Pier.

All participants are giving their time and performing without any personal reward.

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As this is in aid of Leigh Folk Festival, which is a very good cause indeed, please try to drop in and see us!

We Did It!

We had a great day at the Smack! Unfortunately, The Captain’s Beard were stranded in snowy Sussex and couldn’t make it, but local band Grand Reunion stood in at the very last moment. Not that they made it without mishap, as they were without their guitarist, who was, at that very moment, waiting for the paramedics after having a bad fall while loading his kit. A depleted Tempus Experientia, in the shape of “Sailor Sam” (Kevin Corcoran), provided the links and the Hoy Shanty Crew sang their hearts out for us.

Nigel Townend won the songwriting competition. The Cap’n is a hard-hearted blackguard and insisted that entrants had to be there in person and perform their entry themselves – and Nigel did exactly that.

We couldn’t have predicted that weather – it’s at times like that that a pirate sees the charm of the Caribbean …

Anyway – here’s a taste

A word from the Captain! Orders to sail!

Rash. Impetuous. Foolhardy. Bold. Whetever you call it the Winter Pirate Gathering at Leigh on Sea is going ahead tomorrow after all. We have a band, The Captain’s Beard, braving the great outdoors to come up from Brighton, we have our own crew, Captain Morgan’s Rum Do, battling their way from Ipswich and Felixstowe and Tempus Experientia fighting the trains to come from the other side of London. The Hoy Shanty Crew are hardy folks and they plan to be there as billed. All we need now is an audience to make it all worthwhile…. come and spend the day in a pub – what else will you do?

Hails and farewells

Mother Cutbeard writes (because she can)

Ahoy there!

Those of you who have the eyesight of the wandering albatross – or a good spyglass – may have noticed some changes of lineup in our crew.

Aye, there have indeed been comings and goings aboard our vessel in the past sailing season.  Our first and most deeply mourned loss, Rommel the ship’s cat, a king among mousers and the terror of rat-kind, fought his last skirmish in late June at the grand age of 18 years or possibly 20, which be a good innings for a pirate of any species.  We buried him as he would have wished, over the side, and his spirit swims free among the fish of the sea – which will be a pleasant change from the rats and mice aboard our vessel.

I ought also to record the untimely, but not entirely unexpected, end of my long-lost son Black John.  Despite his unfortunate start in life, ripped as he was from my arms when but two hours old, it must be said of him that throughout his short life he never lost any opportunity to make a bad situation even worse.  Moreover, he never passed up any opportunity to indulge his baser instincts, and it was this that brought about his downfall.

We dropped anchor at Port Royal, which as ye be aware, is a thorough cesspit of abomination when it comes to the appetites of the flesh. Now John had already picked up a touch of the Spanish Pox when we called at Tortuga, but he’d applied the poultices, and we paid a wench skilled in simples, going by the name of Calico Cat, to cup him and lance his pustules.

So, as we touched Port Royal, John were more himself, but sadly, this meant that he was all the more inclined to indulge his aforesaid filthy lusts in this dunghill of debauchery. Into the sinks, the stews, the bawdy-places, the molly-houses, the taverns and the gaming-dens he plunged despite the warnings of his friends.  By the time he sought to return to the ship he was again infected with the Spanish Pox.  What a ghastly sight he was, black from corruption of his flesh and pustules such as in my life I never saw, the size of golden guineas and joining up with one another.  For the good of the rest of the crew, the Captain decided that we would not take him back on board, as we could not now nurse him and the Spanish Pox be such a virulent plague.  So there we left him to his fate, and may his fall be a warning to all young pirates who crave to so indulge.

We welcome to our crew two sprightly young females, one a cat, one a woman.  Hobnob the Slayer (cat) has joined us as ship’s mouser, and Calico Cat (woman) the same who lanced Black John’s pustules, has come on board to replace him in his duties. Not only can this wench lance boils and pack cutlass-wounds, she can handle a pistol as well as any man alive, and is nimble in the rigging to boot. Thus our crew be again complete.

Now for more adventures!