On this page you will find all the information you need to know about the South Downs Songs Project.
In the right hand column of this page you will see a number of thumbnails (small images) that you can click on to give you a great deal more information, including the dates and venues of all forthcoming singing workshops. You can also see Emily and the Hares being interviewed and singing some of the South Downs songs. To enroll on one or more of the workshops please click on this link or alternatively you can print out the leaflet, fill it in and send it to our postal address. If you have any problems please contact project manager, Chris Hare on 07794 600639.
The South Downs Songs Project, which is being
run by the South Downs Society, will over the next
two years offer hundreds of people living in or near
the South Downs an opportunity to learn some of
these wonderful songs and thereby reconnect with a
lost culture. There will be songs of love, working life,
celebration, war and humour to learn and celebrate.
These were always the songs of ordinary people, not
professional singers. This project intends to maintain
that inclusive ideal.
When Hilaire Belloc wrote his poem The South
Country at the end of the 19th century, he sensed that
the old ways were passing. In an essay written shortly
afterwards he warned, “When you have lost your inns,
drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last
of England.” For Belloc, inns, drinking and singing
were a glorious trinity that gave vitality and form to
English rural life. Without them, there would be no
England worth the name.
Since Belloc’s time England has changed beyond
recognition. A drive through the towns and villages
of the South Downs will soon reveal many closed
and boarded up inns or others already converted
into private dwellings. As for the mixture of rural
labourers, farmers, carters and shepherds, who once
made up their regular clientele – they have long since
disappeared from the scene.
We cannot recreate the past nor wish back things
that will never return, but we are able to keep alive one
facet of our South Downs heritage – the traditional
songs. Thanks to Victorian and Edwardian collectors of
folk song, such as John and Lucy Broadwood, Michael
Blann, and Arthur Beckett (founding President of the
Society of Sussex Downsmen), many songs that would
otherwise have been lost survive for us to enjoy today.
Most important of all, we have the Copper family of
Rottingdean, who alone
among the South Down
families kept alive a singing
tradition that remained
unbroken, even when the
family lost all ties with a
rural way of life that had once seemed so secure.
The project begins with workshops at Lewes and
Chichester and practice sessions at Worthing. These
workshops start in October and run through to
March. Next year we hope to run further sessions at
Petersfield and Amberley, moving on to other South
Downs locations during the autumn and winter of
2012-13. All the courses are free, thanks to funding
from the Heritage Lottery Fund. We hope to create a
balance in each workshop between men and women
and people of different age groups. Everybody is
welcome and nobody should think they need any
background or experience in folk singing, in fact
coming to these songs fresh and without preconceived
ideas is a positive thing and to be encouraged!
For more details about the South Downs Songs
project please look at the South Downs Society
website or email chris.hare@southdownssociety.org.uk or phone 07794 600639.
Chris Hare, South Downs Songs Manager
Details of forthcoming singing workshops
Book online for singing workshops
Clip used with kind permission of BBC South East
Clip used with kind permission of BBC South