You may very well be interested in this book, available through The Ralph Vaughan Williams Society
"Ralph's People - The Ingrave Secret" by Frank Dinnen. It tells the story of the meeting between Vaughan Williams (then aged 31) and 74 year old Charles Potipher, a labourer in the village of Ingrave, just outside Brentwood, Essex in December 1904. This was the old man who sang "Bushes and Briars", which had such an overwhelming effect on Vaughan Williams,and which set him off on his collecting of traditional song.

All this just so happens to be *very* close to home to me - I live in the parish of Ingrave.

A few years ago, Brentwood borough staged a superb re-enactment of Vaughan William's visit to Ingrave in the form of a guided walk, literally following his footsteps across fields and visiting cottages to meet the people he met: Potipher and also local women Locksie Heatley and Kate Bryan, a schoolteacher through whom he came to visit the area. A lot of my friends played parts in this guided walk: the big fear was that either the tour would take the wrong route and the characters would be left lurking, forgotten, behind a hedge, or else that they would leap out too early, in full costume, bursting forth into song and scaring the living daylights out of unsuspecting ramblers out for a quiet Sunday afternoon stroll !

The Vaughan Williams Society are planning a "Bushes and Briars Centenary Concert" in Essex - which you may also be interested to know about. If you need any photos of the locations in Ingrave, let me know.

- jeanie