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25 Feb 05 - 04:22 AM (#1420384) Subject: Obit: Brian Cookman From: GUEST,Gadaffi Brian Cookman Brian Cookman, best noted as a ragtime and goodtime guitarist and songwriter has died aged 58 following a sceondary carcinoma which resulted in a brain tumour on 18th. February 2005. Curiously, I never witnessed any performance by him at a festival or folk club. It was Brian Cookman the Molly dancer that interested me. Whilst living in the Isle of Ely district, Brian became fascinated in local tradition and this led to discussions with some of the old boys in Little Downham, where the custom still survived between the Wars. On Plough Monday 1977, the Mepal Molly Men visited 23 villages dancing three dances based on figures related to them, comprising a calling-on song, two broom dances, and a four-handed reel. Brian told me more about how they put their performance together whilst he was living in Whitstable, working as a graphics designer. Our initial meeting was cancelled, as he was due to go out canvassing for the Green Party for whom he was standing as a county councillor one year. Whilst living in Kent, he brought down the Mepal lads to celebrate Whitstable's May Day as the Bogshole Mummers. Moving back to Cambridgeshire, he went out with his guitar with the Mepal men singing on Plough Monday when they performed at Stretham, near Ely. His funeral will be taking place at the Brinkley Woodland Cemetery in Cambridgeshire on Wednesday 2nd. March, followed by a Wake in the brewery at Bury St. Edmunds. |