Fleetwood, Lancashire seems to have produced a cluster of excellent songwriters. My Red Duster colleague Ron Baxter has come up with many fine songs over the years since his first effort "Lord Middleton", many of them relating stories of the local fishing industry, but ranging to the Merchant Navy where he first started collecting and writing songs, to local history and beyond. Other Fleetwood Folk Club members Dick Gillingham, Dave Pearce and Ivan McKeown have also produced some excellent songs. Then there's Fylde Festival director Alan Bell, whose songs are known around the world. A bit further afield (he's from Preston), Chris Beeson's "Wyre Light" is one of my favourites. Richard Grothusen (the Amazing Dick) has some excellent songs with a sharp sense of humour and a nifty ukelele style - "I wish they all could be Thornton-Cleveleys girls" still gets requested whenever he turns up. Recent recruit to the folk club pack Rachel McCarron produced a poignant ballad on the wreck of the "Riverdance" which just had to be co-opted into our show "Beware the Fylde Coast's Sands", already in preparation for Fylde when the ship was stranded on the beach at Anchorsholme just a few miles away. There's a chance to hear that and the rest of Ron Baxter's "Wrecks and Rescues" collection when we repeat the show in aid of the Friends of Fleetwood Museum, Thursday December 11th at the Steamer, Fleetwood.

Ross