BurnedThumb

The company hosting my website, burnedthumb.com seems to have gone bust, taking the website with it. There will be a new one up shortly, as soon as my consultant (i.e. daughter Naomi) gets over the horrible flu she’s had.
In the meantime, I’m preparing for a reading I’ll be giving on Sunday 5th July at the Atlantic Islands Festival . This looks like being a fabulous event – Naomi described it as ‘fantasy poets’ camp’ which is about right. The most especially interesting thing turns out to be a presentation from Jacqui McDonald about her life in folk music. Jacqui turns out to be half of the legendary folk group Jacqui and Bridie who were big in Liverpool in the early days of the folk revival, alongside the Spinners, Pete MCGovern (who wrote the Liverpool Lullaby that Cilla Black sang) and Brian Jacques who later went on to write the Redwall series of children’s books.
Back in the day when I had delusions that I would be a folk singer, I sang in Jacqui and Bridie’s club. Can’t remember what we did for the life of me. I Once Loved a Lad, and Lizzie Lindsay, probably, or Ewan McColl and Irish rebel songs (gave up on them later when things got too serious) or drinking songs or sea shanties – couldn’t get away from them in Liverpool then. I think I played tin whistle then too. Now I only play for my grand-daughter!