Well, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this but I thought it polite to let you know about my impending operation. (seeing as I’ve been letting others know)
I will be going into hospital on 25 September to see if the surgeons can fix my leaky mitral valve and I thought I would reflect on my time on Mudcat.
I’m not a chatty person-my social communications skills are seriously under developed which meant that I am a bit of a loner, quiet, introverted -but hey, I get along!
I discovered Mudcat in 1999 and gleaned a few songs from the digital database but I didn’t sign up as bradfordian until a couple of years later. I’m not deep in to folk music but having been exposed to it primary school (maybe aged about 10– Lincolnshire Poacher was the first song) I have maintained a steady interest over the years. At the age of around 54 I decided that it was time to share these songs that I had been gathering over several years and actually for the first time found the confidence to sing to a group of people in a folk club -although I had been going to folk clubs over many years just as audience. Around the same time I also joined a male voice choir with whom I have been a member for 22 years as well as attending a folk club in Nottingham.
But back to Mudcat. I’m not a big reader of all the threads, more dipping in now and again, but some have held my interest. Like the poems of Cicely Fox Smith, I helped Jim and Charley a little with their compendium of CFS poems and have met them both. There were the second set of Mudcat CDs (This is us) which I helped put together. With Aines Mudcat song challenges I helped Joe Offer migrate many songs from Aines website to our own Mudcat website (and Joe, I feel that there are still more to do!).
And I would just like to mention my only attendance at the FSGW Getaway. That was probably my most enjoyable folk music experience meeting ‘caters in the flesh (plus other caters at the Yorkshire mud gatherings hosted by Geoff the duck and Mrs Duck) and l’m gutted that I have not been able to go to the Getaway again.
It is with sadness that I have seen over these past twenty years or so many of the regular contributors pass on to the great folk club in the sky.
But I’m not ready for that just yet and I will be back before long. Watch this space!

Barrie aka bradfordian