Ray, if you resigned as resident band at Poynton in 1974, the surprise is perhaps that the folk club lasted as long as it did. By the late 1980s, when I first started going, they were still getting good acts, Prior/Kemp, Carthy and Swarbrick, Roy Harper, among others), but the owners/organisers of the Centre (as distinct from the folk club) had long since lost interest and the building was virtually derelict.

The residents then were Pete Goode, alternating with the Hughes Brothers. Kieron and Mary Hartley also did it for a while. They now run a folk club in Stockport at the Crown under the viaduct (not the Crown where Granny's used to be).

By the mid-1990s Poynton was as good as dead. I was involved with some friends in trying to revive the Easter folk festival, but we only managed a one-day affair, and it taught us some lessons from the flogging dead horses syllabus. The Hughes brothers kicked off a new Easter festival about five years ago, at a social club elsewhere in Poynton. The premises are a bit limited, and there's no convenient camping, but the Hughes Bros know how to put live folk music on (and real ale), and it's a good little do that punches above its weight. It also doesn't suffer from the 'political' problems that used to beset the old folk club.

The Monday night singers' session, which used to be at Poynton, has moved around a bit and now resides at the Red Bull in Stockport.

I did once play on the same bill as Fiona Simpson at a Hughes Bros event, with Dave Aston, a great harmonica player now sadly departed. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen a Hughes Bros bill that didn't feature Fiona Simpson!

The jug band would be the Purple Gang, presumably? (Rumours of a re-union abound....) I believe they are world famous in Hungary, of all places. Something about them having a hit there, (probably 'Granny Takes a Trip', now you mention it) just before the iron curtain came down, so their song was about the last bit of 60s pop music the locals can remember!

John Constantine, Vic Hassal, Pete Farrow, Mary Asquith. They ring any bells? John and Vic had a band in the 70s called Scarecrow.