Hi Everyone, April already. I hope you are well and enjoying the spring weather with lighter nights, washing on the line etc. – and of course your music.

Next Guest Night - Tuesday 16th April Our guests on this occasion will be duet partners Steve Roxton from

Middlesborough and Jean Dauvin from Normandy. Jean, playing

the C system button accordion, has twice been world champion

accordion player and we can expect some remarkable French

musette playing. Although Steve Roxton (solo) has visited us

since, they last appeared together at our club in July, 2012, and

our account of that event included ‘anyone who could not make it

missed a treat’. We normally have a bonus through the singing

of Jean's wife, Therese. Multilingual Steve can be expected to

play music from around the world including a big dollop of

bierkeller songs.

May (Theme) Players' Night - Tuesday 21st On alternate players' nights we have an (optional) theme for music selection. The May club night is one

such night and the theme is WATER (or anything to do with it e.g. ocean, rain, river, lake, pond etc).

You are unlikely to have difficulty in finding something to fit the bill.

February Club Night with Richard Adey Usually, at this time of year, while Chairman Mike and Barbara are sunning themselves in Tenerife, we

bemoan the weather at home. But not this year, as we enjoyed the early spring sunshine, and not only that,

we had an excellent club night.

This month our guest artist was Richard Adey, from the Birmingham area.

Richard has over 30 years’ playing experience with many prestigious

performances, including two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company

(Stratford-Upon-Avon and on tour), and performances at the London Barbican

Centre, the Kennedy Centre Washington DC, the Brooklyn Academy of Music

New York; and at the Edinburgh Fringe in an acclaimed production of Pam

Gems’, Piaf (Troika Productions).

The club night followed the usual format of circle music, guest artist,

refreshment break, followed by guest artist. The circle playing was well

supported by players and this month lead by Steve.

Richard then wowed us with his playing. He is clearly influenced by jazz,

French music and other genres, and beautifully weaves them into an exquisite

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programme. His playing technique is fascinating, very fluid and full of wonderful jazz chords. Richard

was soon lost in his music and it showed as he closed his eyes and wove rhythmically around the floor.

The following gives a flavour of the music played:

Tico Tico, Douce Joie, Autumn Leaves, Ain’t Misbehavin’, St Louis Blues, Libertango, I Got Rhythm,

Sentimental Mood, La Javanaise, La Vie En Rose, Huages, Jeanette, Besame Mucho, La Cumparsita.

Many thanks to club members who gave raffle prizes and helped make the evening a success, including

Steve, Ken, Margaret, Lee, Helen, Betty and others. The ‘member attendance’ award was not won this

month, so next month the prize money will be £30.

Richard is also part of a 4 piece ‘Gypsy Jazz’ band, ‘Bon Accord’, inspired by the music of Django

Reinhardt and Stephan Grappelli’s Quintet of the Hot Club of France. Alongside his live performance

engagements, using his own recording facilities, Richard offers to production houses, composers and

original song writers the sound of the acoustic accordion on their musical projects. He is always keen to

hear from creative practitioners who may wish to use the sound of his instrument.

All of this experience resulted in a fantastic performance at our club. We thoroughly recommend him to

other clubs.

Tony Britton

March Players' Night We started our players’ night in our usual fashion by playing a selection of music from the playing circle

book. Although the attendance on the night was a bit lower than normal, 28 people,

there were lots of players in the circle, so for about 30 minutes we thoroughly

enjoyed ourselves.

Jeff Burndrett was the first person to do a solo spot and he

gave a lovely rendition of Sitting on Top of the World,

The Harry Lyme Theme, Who Were You with Last

Night, Lovely Bunch of Coconuts, Scotland the Brave and Chase Me Charlie.

Norman Brown (right) was up next and he played The

Fields of Athenry, Maggie, Highland Cathedral, Roll Out the Barrel and

Edelweiss. When he started to play The Fields of Athenry the audience began to

sing. Everyone seemed to be in a singing mood, so they thoroughly enjoyed

themselves by singing, or humming if they didn't know the words, throughout

his programme.

During the interval we had our usual raffle, with lots of prizes, and the draw for our attendant members’

award. As this hadn't been won in January or February of this year it had risen to the princely sum of £30.

Our ‘bingo machine’ is responsible for ejecting the lucky member's number, so I went to a central table so

that everyone could witness fair play. I started to turn the bingo machine handle

and the machine started to wobble and it was at this point that our dear friend

Norman said, "I'll hold that steady for you Mike", so I readily agreed. I turned

the handle carefully and eventually the bingo machine ejected ball number 25,

Norman Brown's unique membership number....mmm?.....My membership list

now says ‘Norman Brown, magician!’

During the second part of the evening our soloists' performances included the

following numbers:

Moira Hague (right) (Northumbrian pipes) - D ream

Angus; Misty Headland; Bobby Shafto.

Lee Slater (saxophone) and Mike Richards (accordion) - Blue Bossa; Georgia

(pictured previous page).

Derek Wilton (harmonica) - Swannee River; Camptown Races; Oh

Susannah; When the Saints; Isle of Capri; Que Sera Sera. Mike Richards

(accordion) - Moondance; Style Musette; Irish Washerwoman/Rakes of

Kildare.

One of our recent recruits, Adrian Schofield (left) (coming all the way from

Bolton), is also a player of the Northumbrian pipes, and is actually an adjudicator for competitions for the

instrument at festivals. He later, after some difficulty in tuning them to his liking, borrowed Moira's pipes

and gave a gymnastic folk music performance.

We had a most enjoyable evening and it was rounded off with the following songs played by our

Thursday ‘Playing for Pleasure’ Group (pictured below).

I'd like to Teach the World to Sing, Roll Out the Barrel, Bless This House, Bless Them All, Old

Rugged Cross, Show Me the Way to Go Home Best wishes, Mike.

NAO North West Area Festival 24th February 2019

The National Accordion Organisation of the United Kingdom runs several area festivals throughout the

year, giving opportunities for accordionists to compete or just enjoy the satisfaction of performing and

having an informed adjudication. The North West area festival has not been held since 2014, and so

organiser Anna Bodell (NAO Secretary) believed it was high time to awaken this phoenix from the ashes

and stir up local talent once again in 2019.

Cathryn and I went along to support this re-kindling, unsure of quite what to expect. Anticipating a

packed day of performances, we arrived at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool around 10.30a.m., after

stuffing the last of our loose change into the ravenous parking machine! Anna was also just arriving, and

we had a pleasant pre-event chat with her to discover that start time would be 12.15, with two 40 minute

sessions and an intervening lunch break. The number of entries was not huge, with only 6 players

covering the whole day. Whilst the room was being set up we nipped down into the city for a Starbucks

and a bit of shopping.

Raymond Bodell (NAO Chairperson) was to be the adjudicator for the day, although with only one of the

thirteen sections having more than one entrant, he wasn’t going to face any challenges to his marking! He

welcomed the ‘huge’ audience of around 11 non-competitors, sharing his vision that word of mouth

would spread news of the event and encourage more participants in the coming years.

Credit must go to young Henry Moyns, who had come down from the Skipton area with his mum, as he

entered 5 of the sections and played with a great presence and technique in a variety of styles from

accordion classical through Mozart and polkas, to a final flourish of The Greatest Showman Medley in

the Junior Entertainment section. Henry and his mum both play with Harry Hinchcliffe’s Craven

Accordion Orchestra.

Annalize Bodell gave her usual polished performances in the Under 17 Solo and Tango Sections, using a

very smartly decorated Hohner button accordion. It must be tough to be adjudicated by your own father, a

former national champion, but Annalize did cast Raymond a whimsical smile on the couple of rare

occasions when she made a mistake, although we wouldn’t have noticed.

Many of us remember Betty Pollard’s enthusiastic work with the Tameside Junior Accordion Band back

in the 1990/2000’s, and it was heart-warming to hear former Tameside member Collette Stevenson (nee

Ainscow) playing ‘L’Arc En Ciel’ in the Returner’s section, having not played for over 15 years.

Raymond explained that this new section is targeted at the 20-plus age group who may have competed in

their youth but drifted away from accordion music to have careers, relationships, families and other such

distractions. This section was non-competitive, but was the only one with two entrants; Ann Parker also

played, with a delightful rendition of her own composition, ‘Woodland Fantasia’, for which she was

rightly praised.

The other mainstay of the day, Suzanne Gregson, played in four separate Late Starters sections, for those

coming to competition later in life (our own Steve Hughes entered one such section in the past). Although

she protested that colleagues had twisted her arm to enter, she clearly showed with her ‘Roses from the

South’ and ‘Suzette’ musette piece that even players past their teens can still render an enjoyable

performance. Suzanne also teamed up with Alicia Beautement to present the Higher Elementary Duet

‘Lloyd’s Llandler’, witnessed by the composer himself, Ken Farran, listening intently from the audience.

To round off an entertaining day Alexander Bodell, winner of several world prizes and NAO national

championships, enthralled us with a concert performance of six stunning pieces, including ‘Czardas’ and

‘Libertango’. His dexterity on his Hohner button accordion was mesmerising.

Following the awarding of prizes (to everyone!), Raymond encouraged us to support the forthcoming UK

National Championships from 26th

– 28th

April, also at the Adelphi in Liverpool, which will include

special celebration features to mark the NAO’s 70th

anniversary. Jean Hanger will be leading an open

vintage orchestra for anyone who wants to participate; you don’t have to be vintage yourself, but you are

welcome to join especially if you have a vintage instrument. Cathryn and I shall be there, and I know a

few others who plan to attend. Apart from being a competitive event, the emphasis is on everyone sharing

their music and, most of all, having fun playing and listening to it. Come and join the fun with us.

Steve & Cathryn Houghton

Charity Concert, Cheadle Methodist Church 2 March 2019

This event had been a mere 15 months in the planning. Following our recruitment drive and performance

of carols at Cheadle Guild Hall in November 2017, Barry Barnett, then president of Cheadle U3A and

leader of the ukulele band, invited us to share in their band’s charity concert at the Arts Festival in 2019,

each band performing for half the evening.

Our club was happy to accept. Time passed all too swiftly. Our MD Steve Houghton set the programme at

the end of 2018 to avoid duplication of songs with Uke3A. Ticket sales seemed slow at first and anxiety

about bad weather and dark nights began to worry us. Would accordions and ukuleles actually prove to

be a popular combination? However, ticket sales boomed in the last few days and we then worried about

providing hot drinks to 150 people as the boiler had broken down!

March 2th

eventually dawned and a stalwart gang appeared in the rain at the church at 2pm and set about

transforming the main hall into a concert area and borrowing a boiler.

At 6pm the doors opened and the two bands totalling 50+ started to arrive. The church proved to be an

excellent venue with plenty of separate rooms for both bands.

Pete was detailed to take charge of the raffle as he doesn’t need a microphone. He was busy receiving

numbers of raffle prizes and was seen to be secreting away bottles of alcohol into a fridge, having been

gently reminded that they were not permitted in the church!

By 7.30pm the church was packed with an audience of 100 plus the ukulele players. We opened our

programme with My Fair Lady. My attention was immediately captured by a lady and her friend in the

second row who enthusiastically started singing and beating time – the audience was hooked. It was

going to be a good night! Our performance continued with Whistle Down the Wind, Oklahoma, Liberty

Bell, the haunting Speak

Softly Love and other

favourites plus some new

additions including Largo

and A La James Last.

At 8.30pm as the

audience filed out to take

refreshments in the back

room, our band vacated

the ‘stage’ and rallied

round to help Phil the

drummer load up! Tea and biscuits and a hasty removal of 23 raffle prizes, several wine bottles included

and the second half scene was set for us to be royally entertained by Uke3A (above).

What a treat to relax with song books and enjoy singing lustily to a range of popular songs. We all

enjoyed it and the charm of the evening was the contrast between the two bands - North Staffs Accordion

Band with its formal uniform, skilful arrangements, style and musical expertise and Uke3A members with

their colourful outfits, wide ranging skills in vocal and instrumental performance and fun loving delight in

their music and instruments.

A great night was summed up when takings were counted and the grand total of £700 had been raised, to

be shared equally between our respective charities, Cheadle Homelink and Retina UK. What a good

effort, I have a feeling the bands may meet again!

Viv Cowie

Newcastle under Lyme Music Festival appearance and Black Country Concert Another year gone and on Saturday, 23

rd March the club band competed once more at the Newcastle

under Lyme Festival for Music, Speech and Drama this time playing an arrangement of the Whitney

Houston song, One Moment in Time. It is a beautiful arrangement by Helmut Dewell of the Albert

Hammond composition. We put on a strong performance prompting MD Steve Houghton to send out the

following message to the band

members:

“Your performance at the festival

today was outstanding, and I couldn't

feel happier about the quality of our

playing as a band and our

representation of the club. We

achieved a mark of 84 (Merit), and

finished in a very strong 3rd place”.

Two days later the band members

travelled by coach to the Black

Country Accordion Club, Rowley

Regis near Dudley, where we were welcomed with a cup of tea/coffee. It was a cracking night and,

though we had one or two hiccups we enjoyed the playing and felt that the audience did as well.

The journey back was somewhat eventful with the M5 junction closed for repair work. After an urban

detour we joined the M6 at the Walsall junction only to be informed that the motorway was closed

between Stafford and Stoke. Following this second detour we arrived back at the Holditch car park at one

minute past midnight.

Stalwart member, Graham Butler dies aged 94 It was with great sadness that we had to announce the sudden death of one of our stalwart members,

Graham Butler, at the ripe old age of 94. He recently suffered a stroke which initially deprived him of his

speech but he was working hard to regain it, making good progress. Graham, otherwise known as

'memory man' for his ability to play accordion classics from memory, had been a member of the club

band for 29 years, until the age of 92. For several years he was on the committee of the club prior to

which he assisted Doreen Gething in running an early version of the

'beginners group'.

He was regarded as the club accordion 'doctor' and would help any

member who had a fault develop in their accordion or if it needed

tuning and I used to enjoy working alongside him on many of these

jobs. During these sessions he would recount stories of his working

days in the mines and how he received taunts from his workmates for

using a face mask. He outlived them all.

Graham could also repair clocks and would work out the function of

every cog and spring. A box he invented containing the mechanics to operate a blade for the craftwork his

wife, Joyce, undertook, was a masterpiece. The blade made regular cuts half-way through paper tape by

operating like scissors, mechanics moved the tape along at the same time and at a regular speed. The end

product could be coiled, creating flower petals for cards or pictures. He ended up having to make one for

each of Joyce’s friends. I often wondered what heights his abilities would have achieved had he been born

in the age of the computer.

Graham wrote a couple of articles for the club newsletter. One gave details of his work in renovating a

Frontanelli accordion (he is pictured with it below), and the other, reprinted below, giving an interesting

history of how he came to play the accordion.

You will be sorely missed, Graham. RIP

Steve Hughes

How I Came To Play the Accordion By Graham Butler I suppose my interest in the ‘squeezebox’ began when I was about seven, on a

Sunday, when I was visiting Auntie Nelly and Uncle Fred. Every Sunday I had

to attend chapel, (Free Church in Chesterton), morning and afternoon sessions,

and in-between I was urged to visit my various relatives in turn, under threat of

death if I got my clothes dirty. Uncle Fred had a concertina and to get me from

underfoot, I reckon, Auntie Nelly used to put me in the parlour and let me play

with it, ‘if I was careful’, because Uncle Fred did not know about it. I soon

learned ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’, ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’, etc. and tried to

get to their house often, but still had to honour four or five other aunts with my

presence, so progress was slow.

Still, it started me on music, and when I grew out of the visits I learned the

mouth organ, which I became good at. I could always earn a few extra pennies

at Christmas accompanying carol singers, and we had singalongs when we

were walking to work at Parkhouse Pit. I started work there on Monday January 9th

1939, the day after

my fourteenth birthday. It was a job I was destined to stay in for the next twenty-seven years. When my

sixteenth birthday arrived I was put onto shift work, days and nights, and as several of my workmates

lived close by, we would call on each other and proceed to cross the wasteland from Chesterton to

Parkhouse, which is now Parkhouse and Rosevale Industrial Estate. The problem was that it was wartime,

pitch black and blackout, so picking our way safely by the light of a candle in a jam jar on a piece of

string was difficult, especially if we heard the bombers droning overhead and had to blow it out. We

eventually found it better to walk down the railway lines, getting used to walking on the sleepers, learning

at cost where the crossover lines, junctions and levers were, (the levers were at an awkward height), and if

we heard the occasional grunt of pain, someone had found one. This is where the old mouth organ came

in. Singing brought comfort against anything that lurked in the darkness.

It was on the way home from work after a day shift that my interest in music got a boost one day. A local

lad, John Stockton, asked me if I wanted to buy his Hohner 24 bass for £6. That excited me because I had

always admired his ability on the box. He was a bit older than me,

but he had played as long as I had known him, and I would follow

him around where he played, usually to small parties and halls

where a Mr. Parsons would organise little occasions to create an

interest among younger people. An added interest was the

inclusion of tea and two biscuits, a luxury in the days of rationing,

and always nice and warm in winter. We had some good times

thanks to Mr. Parsons’ parties. I often expressed interest to John,

although I couldn’t play. Anyway, on getting home I told Mum of

the offer. I only had pocket money, as I had by now a brother and

sister, so I had to hand in my wages, about £2.75 (£2 15s) for a six

day week. Bless her, she agreed. So I took a ten minute bike ride to his home and brought back the box

over my shoulder. Dad knew a man on the pit bank whose son, Tom Pessol, self-taught, but brilliant, gave

lessons at one shilling and sixpence (seven and a half pence). He lived a few miles away, so every week

Mum would give me two shillings, one and six for the lesson and two pence bus fare each way and two

pennies change, which I had to give back.

I lasted for about nine months with my 24 bass, but got a 120 bass for Christmas. It was the best present

I’ve ever had. I knew nothing about it until it turned up. Mum and Mr. Pessol must have got their heads

together without me. I came on well after that. Most of the music I was taught was classics and marches

and most of it belonged to Tom, which I would take home, learning in the living room and giving it back

when I had learned to play it by heart, or memory. I could never really get into those dots and lines and

squiggly bits, so I memorised them because I was too idle to study. Most of what I do is what I learned in

the five years I was with Tom, who would keep on until I was note perfect, but became resigned to how I

learned to play.

During my time being taught, when I became good enough, I went with Tom and two of his friends who

played at ‘dos’ on various occasions at clubs and private functions. Most of the private ones were at

Whitmore, when the farmers with relatives in the forces celebrated their homecoming with a dance. In

those days even a portable record player was rare, so we were invited along for about £2 each – a fortune.

Our method of transport was my motorbike on which I would fix my box to the carrier on the back and

pick up Tom with his Cooperativa L’Armonica in-between me and him - a bit of a tight squeeze

Nevertheless, I would have played at the farmers’ ‘dos’ for free if only for the food they put on. There

was no shortage of meat, fruit or vegetables there. You wouldn’t have thought there was a war on and

they let us join in and at nineteen I could eat a horse anytime. I went to several places by myself; to

various clubs and institutions, and what I earned I split with my mum to

go towards the box.

At one period I had a weekly date at the Miner’s Arms, which was

situated on the corner, fifty yards above our Holditch clubhouse, so it

was handy to get to from the other end of the village. Harry Reilly, the

publican, would give me 12/6d to play in the bar, snug and lounge and

allow me to go round with the hat or sometimes one of the regulars

would go for me. On a good night I’d make about thirty shillings

(£1.50). The snag with riding a motor bike to ‘gigs’ was that, in spite of

gloves, my fingers were nearly always rigid when I arrived and I found

that ‘Sharpshooters’ and ‘Double Eagle’ were the easiest pieces to open

with when you had stiff cold fingers and I had about forty five minutes

after to warm up

I was with Mr. Pessol (I always called him mister) for about four and a half years when he said he had

taken me as far as he could. I played on for about a year and then I lost interest. I later married and tried

again, but by then my two lads had learned to sing ‘Davy Crocket’ and wouldn’t let me play anything

else, so I packed it in and got rid of the box. I tried again after several years with an accordion given to

me by my cousin who had had a few lessons and then had gone into the army. I had it until 1979 when,

after a plea over the radio by Mel Scholes on behalf of a man who went round old folk’s homes in the

area. He wanted the loan of a light 120 bass and I phoned his number as I wasn’t using mine. I left it for

him at Fenton Old Folk’s Home on the understanding that I wanted it back eventually and fixed my phone

number etc to the inside of the case. I never saw it again. So, if there is a red Mariotti with a funny F

diminished button out there, (it only went down a fraction as the screw on the endplate stopped it), its

mine.

Around 1990 I heard about an accordion group who met at the Hempstalls pub at Crossheath and I went

out of curiosity. I was greeted by a much younger Steve Hughes, who invited me to ‘have a go’ on his

box. I declined, telling him that I used to play once, but doubted that I could get up and down a scale now.

But it got me going again and I bought an old one out of The Sentinel for £40, relying on my memory to

replay all my old numbers. I got most of them back and play them. I joined Peter Burton’s group, later to

become Doreen’s Ensemble, to learn more about music, the stuff I should have paid more attention to in

my early days. I think that I’ve made progress, especially since I joined the band, and I keep my eyes and

ears open. However there is still plenty of room for improvement.

(Pictured above, Graham in his workshop and blowing out his 90th

birthday candles).

Diary

Accordion Tuition. Pauline Hardwick Tel 01782 397298 accordion and/piano

Stefan Andrusyschyn Tel 07958261024 accordion and piano

John Romero Tel 01606 270148 accordion and keyboard

Club Management President Steve Houghton 01270 768178

Committee Chairman Mike Richards 01782 642101

Secretary Steve Hughes 01782 787935

Treasurer Mike Richards (acting) 01782 642101

Safeguarding Mike Richards 01782 642101

Tony Britton, Helen Brown, Ken Hall,

Paul Hobbs, Margaret and Lee Slater.

Web address - www.northstaffsaccordionclub.co.uk

Newsletter Editor Lily Lynch email - accordions@northstaffsaccordionclub.co.uk

REGISTERED CHARTITY No 1180528

Holditch Working Men’s Club

Mondays except day before clubnite 6.00 - 7.00pm Band music practice

7.15 – 8.30pm Beginners’ class Bradwell Workingmen’s Club:

Tuesdays other than 3rd

7.00-7.30 'Fun' session

7.30-8.00 Pre-rehearsal session

8.00-10.00 Band Rehearsal 2nd Thursday 1.00 –3.30p.m. Solo and group session Goldenhill Workingmen’s Club

3rd Tuesday of month 7.30pm Club night April 16th Steve Roxton & Jean Douvin May 21st Players' Theme Night June 18th Julie Best July 16th Players' Night August 20th Players' Theme Night September 17th AGM and Players' Night October 15

th Players' Night

November 19th Walter Perrie and Helen Rich December 17th Xmas Party – Celtic Fettlers Band Appearances

April 6th St Werburgh's Church, Knightley June 22nd Medical Centre, Hartshill