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NOVEMBER 2025

Hello everyone!

 

November finds me back in Scotland after a trip to Australia. It was a great trip, meeting some old pals and making new friends and connections. I began in Perth, playing a fundraiser concert for ‘Little Folk’, a charity that raise funds for children’s cancer sufferers https://www.littlefolkinc.com The charity is run by the incomparable Ken and Connie Kenny and their son Noel, all great supporters of folk music. Ken and Conny emigrated from Ireland in the late 60s and have kept in touch with their roots through music and dance (Ken’s brother Enda is a popular folk singer in Australia https://endakennymusic.com),  Next up was a trip south to the coastal town of Albany and a lovely little concert at the King River Hall organised at short notice by Glasgow born Janice (Flossy) Fulton.

 

Myself and my wife Mary then flew east to Sydney to stay with Yvonne O’Grady, a lady who befriended Battlefield Band on an early tour of Australia back in the day. Yvonne lives with daughter Kath in the charming coastal town of Kiama, south of Sydney. That became our base for the next week or so as I played a couple of concerts around Sydney then headed to the aptly named Kangaroo Valley and its folk festival. It’s a friendly and intimate folk festival which suited me fine and I got lots of exercise locating and lugging the keyboard I had borrowed around the various venues (thanks to Hannah Beasley of Bec Taylor and the Lyrebirds who had kindly lent me hers when she was not using it).

 

We then took another flight to Adelaide and the Fleurieu folk festival in the town of Willunga in the McLaren Vale wine region. The festival programme had me featured as one of the highlights and I’m happy to say that the audiences response to me was very enthusiastic. And it was great to spend time with my pal Eric Ford and his wife Kim.

 

The last week saw us drive from South Australia to Victoria. I had looked into making at least one of our Australian journeys by rail (to avoid another flight) but the train from Adelaide to Melbourne didn’t run on the day we were travelling so we ended up renting a car one way. A bonus from not hurtling through the air at 30,000 feet or so was that we saw kangaroos, pelicans and, at one stage, an emu in the middle of the road on our way east. We visited old friends John and Carolyn Menzies in Camperdown, following that with a lovely house concert in Ballarat before finishing at the Maldon folk festival. These last two stops were in the heart of gold rush country. Our Ballarat hostess Pam Harris challenged me to add to my Scottish and Yukon gold rush songs by writing one on the Australian gold rush. We’ll see where that goes! My Maldon performances were warmly received and made a great finish to what was a very enjoyable trip.

 

2025 is shaping up with gigs in Scotland and England in January and February. In one of these (Inchture) I will be sharing the bill with celebrated singer Christine Kydd https://www.christinekydd.com/about.asp We’ll be doing some numbers together, something I’m really looking forward to. Later in the year I will be making trips to Canada and Germany. Details will be updated on the gig page.

 

All the best and hopefully see you soon!


Alan

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