The Chiltinas 25th Anniversary

Maulden Church Hall

18th September 2022

The Chiltina Concertina Group, better known as the Chiltinas, was founded on 21st February 1997 by Geoff Thorp. The inaugural meeting was held in the “Club House” in his garden. About 15 concertina players turned up and after introducing themselves and playing some tunes decided to meet regularly once a month. At the half-way time Carol Thorp, Geoff’s wife, brought a large cake and tea and coffee for refreshments – a tradition that continued until Geoff sadly passed away in March 2015. It soon became apparent that the Club House was not really big enough once everyone had their music stands erected, and after about 12 months the decision was made to hire the Maulden Church Hall where the Chiltinas have been ever since.

Now in its 25th year it was decided to celebrate the event. The 6th February 2022 had been planned by the ICA to be the first World Concertina Day, and this fitted in nicely with the anniversary of the founding of the Chiltinas. We decided to combine the two events. It was also decided to have a second event in September to hold a more private celebration.

Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne accepted an invitation for September to run an all-systems workshop followed by a concert. Then all went quiet for a few months. Cohen was to take a train to Milton Keynes and our member John Warren was going to collect him and put him up for the night, and on the following day take him to Milton Keynes again for his homeward journey to north Wales. The seating arrangement in the hall had been decided, and during the break there would be free Chiltina cream teas for all so we were all set to go until …

Rumblings of train strikes were reported on the news during August, and when the dates were announced – calamity, Sunday 18th September was one of them. No problem though – Cohen would take a train on the Saturday and stay two nights with John Warren and his wife Jackie, but the strike was actually over the whole weekend. It looked as if the workshop and concert were unlikely to go ahead, and there would only be a normal Chiltina Sunday but followed with a meal at the George Inn in Maulden.

Then on 8th September the sad news that the Queen had died flashed across the networks and that there would be 10 days of mourning. There was speculation that her funeral would be on 18th September. Things that went through our minds at the time – would pubs be open, would celebrations such as ours be allowed? However it turned out that the funeral was to take place on Monday 19th September. Could there be a chance for our celebration to go ahead?

The rail strikes for the weekend were cancelled, private celebrations and weddings etc allowed to continue, so our event was on again.

On the day of our celebration I arrived early at the Church Hall to put up the Chiltina History Board and start making 30 cream teas. I wanted them all prepared before the Workshop started leaving only the teas and coffee to be made at break time. Cream teas at Chiltina meetings had always been cream on first and then the jam, but Kate Stokes who took over the supervision in the kitchen determined that the jam was to go on first and then the cream, i.e. we would have Cornish cream teas and not the Devon cream teas that we usually had.

Promptly at two o’clock Cohen started his workshop. He took us through playing the scale of C major, playing notes quietly and louder using bellows control to emphasise the difference. He even got the English players to change bellows direction for repeated notes! We went on to play three tunes: Go to Joan Glover, Brother Tiger, Exile of Cambria, finally we played Exile of Cambria in four parts.

During the Cornish cream tea break Cohen’s shop was opened, and members were able to purchase CDs and tune books and other merchandise. Whilst this was going on willing helpers washed up the cups and plates.

Once refreshed and before the concert started, John Warren was presented with a CD for his part in the celebrations, i.e. putting Cohen up and looking after him during his Chiltina visit. Arrangements were made for John’s wife Jackie to receive some flowers.
Cohen played various tunes and sang folk songs, music hall songs and some self-penned songs. He had brought along five concertinas which he described and used for various songs and tunes during the concert.

Cohen started with two songs The Jolly Highwayman and The New Deserter. Next came the song The Dancing Tailor accompanied on a CG Lachenal Bass Anglo bought at an auction whilst he was still studying at university and paid for with help from his student loan.

Then out came a Lachenal Piccolo Anglo concertina from about 1870 with notes going up into the stratosphere.

Next was the turn of a Jefferies Anglo tuned in A and a Romany song, Come Make my Bed.

A music hall song, Two Lovely Black Eyes, took us to a short break after which Cohen played a tune from the John Thomas manuscripts, Dainty Lady.

Picking up his next concertina he explained that just before one Christmas a gentleman contacted him to say that he had a Jefferies concertina and would like to talk to him about it. Naturally Cohen thought he would tell him something about its history and what music he played on it. The gentleman explained that it had belonged to his grandfather and nobody in the family could play it and would he like to have it – well the answer of course was “yes please”. What a Christmas present! On trying to play some Anglo chords Cohen found it just did not work as expected. On further examination it turned out to be a Jefferies Duet tuned in G rather than an Anglo – so a completely different beast. This meant Cohen now had to learn a new system. Although he claimed to be an amateur on the Duet, playing Bright Rosy Morning on it he sounded very professional.

Fireman’s Growl came next. This was originally a poem written by a London North-West Railway fireman to describe his working life in the days of steam. Cohen found the poem in Karl Dallas’s book Songs of Toil where it is set to the traditional tune Tramps and Hawkers.

During the Lockdown period Cohen was invited by the EFDSS to take part in a research project on British songs that had been taken to the Americas by UK migrants which were then adopted by the Black American and Caribbean communities. One of these songs was The Outlandish Knight that Dorothy Scarborough, a Black culture song collector, heard being sung by a lady to her child. Another song that had travelled the world this time to the British Virgin Islands was Highway Robber.

Continuing on the same theme of Black culture music Cohen played Scott Joplin’s Palm Leaf Rag.

Finishing off the concert was the song, From Marble Arch to Leicester Square with everyone joining in the chorus.

At six o’clock Cohen’s presentation was over – it was a wonderful way to celebrate our anniversary, and both the workshop and concert were very well received.

About 16 members and Cohen then retired to the George Inn where we had an enjoyable meal – a fine end to our 25th anniversary.

Martin Henshaw