I sang my first unaccompanied song ever at a singaround on Monday...it was "John Condon".

It seemed to go down quite well despite my version being a VERY poor imitiation of Flossie's, which is where I got the inspiration to learn it. I don't sing well, but managed to find a key that I could do it in and sound pretty good.

I think the paperwork, census records etc prove pretty conclusively that JC was 19 when he died, but that doesn't detract from the spirit of the song. I can understand his family being reluctant to relinquish the myth, but when I heard Flossie sing it, I did research the background quite a bit and I'm pretty convinced of the evidence of his age, and also that it's probably not even his body in that particular grave.

None of that matters though, as the song is wonderfully moving. When I'd finished, there was that moment of silence you sometimes get before applause starts, which comes across as a "feeling" that the audience was sufficiently absorbed in the song not to be just waiting for the last note so they could clap. It made my evening!