Kettle Bridge Concertinas logo Concertina in a hat

Kettle Bridge Concertinas

Concertina group based in Maidstone, Kent, UK

• HomeAbout UsPast EventsFeaturesContact UsMembers Only

School Gambia BBQ  -  Sun 27th August 2017

 
[Error! Image IMGP4605.JPG is not available.]
Kettle Bridge in full flow.
<< First | < Prev | 13 of 14 | Next > | Last >>

< Back to list of 2017 events

Report and photos by Steve C.

School Gambia is a local charity that is engaged in improving the education of children in Gambia. In particular, it sponsors the Yalding School in Farato, near the Gambian coast. Each year, it holds a barbecue to raise funds for its excellent work and, as in previous years, this was held on the August Bank Holiday Sunday in Yalding. Kettle Bridge Concertinas were very pleased to be invited to play at this year's event.

Now it is very brave to expect good weather on a Bank Holiday weekend but we were blessed this year with warm sunshine and hardly a cloud in the sky. This attracted a good sized crowd who could relax and enjoy all that was on offer. The setting for the event could not have been better, either. It was held in the gardens of The Thatchers in Yalding, a delightful quintessentially English thatched house. Just look at the accompanying pictures to see what I mean.

Apart from us, there were musical contributions from three other groups.

  • Relative Minors — so called because many of the past and present members are related to each other — are a local orchestra with a wide-ranging repertoire of modern and not-so-modern music. They have been going for nearly 25 years and are regular supporters of School Gambia (and GamBLE as it used to be known).
  • Childe Rolande, a folk group named after a Robert Browning poem, are also long term supporters of the charity and have played many gigs over the years to raise funds.
  • Village Voices are a local, mixed, vocal group also with a long association with School Gambia.
The performances were arranged as a series of half hour sets and provided the audience with an excellent variety of music.

Having had a chance to enjoy the delicious barbecue fare which was accompanied by a great selection of salads, we settled down for our performance session at about 2:20. We played many of our most popular pieces including Moon River, Over The Rainbow and The Great Escape, finishing up with Thaxted. The audience obviously enjoyed the music as there was plenty of singing and humming along.

By the time we had finished, dessert was being served. This consisted of strawberries and ice cream — what better way to finish off a great day?