Lovely Spring day at Champs Hill

A beautiful spring day followed by a lovely evening at Champs Hill... in aid of Dreambuilding.

One of the many statues in the gorgeous Champs Hill garden, with colour all around.

I had a walk around the garden with the house dog, who found his rubber chicken in this particular flower bed; his search is about to begin below.

Walking around here put us in a good mood for our evening; the tickets had sold very quickly for the event... a lovely meal in the concert hall-cum-art gallery (& recording studio!); an auction... with auctioneer, Charles Collingwood... and then us to end the evening!

All terrific... great to see Charles Collingwood (Brian Aldridge in BBC Radio 4's The Archers, btw) & indeed his wife Judy Bennett (Shula in BBC Radio 4's The Archers, btw)... he splendidly shepherded the auction to collecting many thousands for the charity... a very successful evening for the new building for a local hospice.
We had previously met them both at our Cricket 'Rhyme and Season' evenings, as organised by the late-lamented David Rayvern Allen, at Lord's, Hambledon and elsewhere, where Charles, a keen cricketer himself always read/acted hilariously!

As ever, the Champs Hill room was a delight in which to sing, and the audience enjoyed music from Henry VIII to Elton John, via The Mills Brothers and Laurel & Hardy!

Chris Hatt was once again with us at the piano, so all five of us had a splendid time... Sarah-Ann was especially impressed with a bucket of sausages as big as her head!

David Rayvern Allen funeral

The sun shone on north-east London for the day yesterday as we gathered to say farewell to David Rayvern Allen....

English idyll:

His brother Keith & Richard Stilgoe gave marvellous speeches remembering the great man... as musician, pianist, radio producer, speaker, prolific cricket writer and historian... hard work never worried him!

Excellent to see brothers both, Tim & Jo Rice; Alan Maryon-Davies & Peter Christie (from Instant Sunshine); as well as Barry Forgie... the church was full to the brim of family, & friends from many decades..... in support of Rosemary, Lindsay & Briony.
We sat next to a concorde pilot!

As ever a wonderful moving occasion which made all fervently wish that the man himself were there to see it...

Repentigny, Québec and coming home...

Delightful end to tour in a beautiful church in Repentigny...with an excellent acoustic.
11 years ago, we were here too... such bravery to have us back so soon!

All went well, but especially wonderful to sing our classical repertoire in the church... Comment Amour, Bist du bei Mir, Priez pour paix and Oblivion each feeling very good from up at the front.

Everyone there very happy and jolly and so keen to help and be kind.
Thank you to all.

Also they had a veracious appetite for CDs & songbooks; lots of smiling faces after the show.
Relief, I expect.

So another great tour of Canada is over; such a splendid territory for us for the last eleven years... long may it continue.

We chased off after the concert for Ottawa (& an airport hotel), so we were "ready" to get up at 3.45 for the silly o'clock to Toronto so we could get home in one day.... and thus here we are!

Glad to be home; and good to be able to go to David Rayvern Allen's funeral tomorrow.

David Rayvern Allen RIP

Very sad news to hear that our old friend, David Rayvern Allen has died...

Such a polymath; radio producer, presenter and announcer from the latter part of radio's golden age, speaker, author of huge numbers of authoritative biographies, books and anthologies on his beloved game of cricket... and collector of sheet music of a huge range, but mainly a vast collection of sporting songs... (which we have plundered over the years).

A supporter of many artists over decades, and a great friend of the indefatigable Richard Stilgoe, he of course mentored and co-produced our Songs of Cricket CD on Signum.

No more jolly cricket evenings at Lord's (and elsewhere) with DRA doing his presenting bit and our all being able to mess around in whites.

A sad loss...

St Bride Institute Xmas concert

Another lovely evening at the St Bride Institute, Bride Lane, celebrating Christmas, and having a jolly mince-pie time.

To have the great and the good of this excellent organisation there was splendid... (and there's more next week!)

Two people of great influence over our Songs of Cricket CD were there; David Rayvern Allen who provided the music knowledge & Jonny Knowles who supported us through it... both there (with family) to hear The Ins and outs of Cricket & Stilgoe's Barmy Army...

...and we had an even more splendid end to the evening, as two 'carols' combined; a plan hatched last year supposedly, between our own Carole, who does so much for us with the mailing list and CD sales, and a long-serving fan Carol, who made a Cantabile-The-London-Quartet-30th-Anniversary cake which was shared by everyone in the audience. How scrumptious it was.
Thank you, both 'carols'! A lovely gesture; much appreciated... and still, as we have some in our houses!