The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #174064 Message #4222017
Posted By: GUEST,Steve Shaw
04-May-25 - 09:55 AM
Thread Name: Memory and old age
Subject: RE: Memory and old age
Well I can't remember what colour my bedroom carpet is but I routinely find myself singing along to pop songs that I haven't heard for over half a century.
We have an extremely successful and thriving Memory Café here in Bude - Mrs Steve and another lady run it and I'm a mere volunteer (and I wouldn't miss it for the world). We try to get an act, songsters preferably, who'll do an hour or so at each meeting in our community hall. There's no prescription as to what songs should be in their playlists, but experience tells them, and us, that songs of approx. the sixties go down really well, especially if they have singalong bits in them. "Is This The Way To Amarillo" is a typical example of what goes down a storm, but anything goes really. I've recently joined a local band of shanty/folk singers, with me singing (for the first time in my life in public) and playing the tremolo harmonica (not my usual axe!). We're doing the Memory Café in a few weeks' time. That'll surprise 'em when they see me up there singing The Wellerman in my RNLI (lifeboat charity, yanks) polo shirt! I should think that The Song of the Western Men, aka Trelawney, will go down well yer in Cornwall!
Speaking of memory and old age, I'm nearly 74 and am the second youngest, by a short head, in the band. We will have the song words in front of us! ;-)