I had a great time at last night's 'Meet of the Tongue' event in Robertsbridge! While there were not a huge amount of people there our host, Yvonne Rees, did a splendid job of facilitating a good old-fashioned evening of social interaction and began the night by asking us all to spend a few moments to think of either our best or worst ever Christmas. Accompanied by the soft acoustic guitar playing of regular attendee Derek Povey, we all sat in silence contemplating our answers for a few moments...
Christmas is a time of MANY wonderful memories for me (as this blog stands witness) and so it was hard for me to think of just one Christmas to tell everyone about when it came around to my turn to speak. I had a very happy childhood (in the main, I have always suffered with emotional problems) and Mum and Dad always went out of their way to make Christmas special. I think I have missed that 'special feeling' ever since and maybe that is why I always throw my heart and soul into Christmas in the hope that just for a few days that 'warm inner glow' will return. Most years it does, though often only for a fleeting period, but others, try as hard as I might, the conditions to re-kindle those far off days are just not right. The weather can play its part in that as if it is too warm and sunny (like this year!) then it is harder to transport myself back into that precious Christmas space.
Going to festive events really helps though and I was gutted to find the whole of Robertsbridge having a street party with stalls and fairground rides when we arrived last night. Don't get me wrong, it was amazingly lovely to see a community coming together and making something of the festive season - I was just gutted because had I known it was on I would have suggested to Alvin that we arrive early and join in the fun for a bit. Not having kids cuts deeper at Christmas than any other time of the year and seeing all of their little happy faces whizzing around on the carousel with their duffle coats and bobble hats on was just like something out of a dream for me...
Still, if that kind of made me a bit sad, Meet of the Tongue soon cheered me up. As you will know if you follow this blog ( or read my articles for 'Hastings Town' magazine) I love the intimate and supportive atmosphere that exists at 'Meet of the Tongue'. No matter who you are or where you come from there is always a BIG welcome waiting for you at the meetings and the fact that everyone gets involved by either sharing a song, a story or a poem is great. Whether listening or performing everyone contributes and we often sing songs and create loads of opportunities to laugh. Last nights event was one of the best ever and after Derek finished playing each one of us recounted stories from our lives about Christmas to the whole group. People spend so much time online these days that its actually quite difficult nowadays to find somewhere you can go to get human interaction free of mobile phones and the like.
Aside from our personal stories of Christmas Yvonne provided us all with some of her poems as did a few others. Jane Trott told us a captivating and festive story from Mongolia about God's gift to the world of story telling, Alvin read one of his typically eclectic stories full of science and sex and Sally Fadelle presented more of her powerful poems. We had even more powerful and thought provoking poems from Laurie, while Jan Povey recounted the story of her 60 year old Christmas Fairy and read 'the famous poem' The Night Before Christmas'. Derek Povey meanwhile returned in the second half to read a comical but powerful story of life in the trenches at Christmas and how a mum's Christmas pudding broke down a bastion. As for me, I told the story of my mate Alan and his slippers and sang my tribute song to him, 'You Can't Take Christmas Away From Me' live. As ever, I had to suffer NUMEROUS problems with getting my backing track CD to play properly and there were a few 'false starts' to the song but in the end I performed it well and I think people liked it.
At the end of the evening I stood up to initiate a round of applause for Yvonne, who puts in the work all year to keep 'Meet of the Tongue' going and then it was time for us all to say goodbye and head back into our lives.
If I were you, I'd make attending the next 'Meet of the Tongue' a priority for 2017. January 6th is the date, 8pm is the time and 'The Ostrich' pub in Robertsbridge is the venue. Why not re-kindle your sense of belonging at a good, old-fashioned community style event?
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