DORCHESTER’s Tatterdemalion, who began as the band of the New Hardy Players, celebrate their tenth anniversary of folky fun and colourful ceilidhs with a musical family get-together at the Corn Exchange on Saturday 13th September.
For 10 years, Tatterdemalion have bounced around stages, bringing traditional tunes known to Dorset people 200 years ago to life, and involving audiences and participants in many a merry jig all over the county.e in September.
Since their formation to provide music for the New Hardy Players’ productions, they have branched out into their own career –many newly-weds have enjoyed the strains of the band’s fiddles for their first dance as a couple; many charities have benefitted from their fundraising prowess; and many new folk dancers have had their first experience of the art at the celebrated Kiddies’ Keilidhs.
Band leader Alastair Braidwood reminisces: ‘It was a strange beginning. A group of people who didn’t really know each other very well brought together to play music, who then realised they were on to a good thing. We were asked to play some tunes for a bit of dancing at a party, and then someone else asked if we’d play for a fundraiser and it all took off from there.
We’ve become friends over the years; indeed, the number of married couples in the band has lately doubled!’
Recent EFDSS gold badge winner Tim Laycock, folk singer, historian and musician, has much to answer for; he provided the first tunes and gathered the musicians together. His wife Angela is the primary caller for the group and brings her extensive knowledge, warm manner, and unwillingness to take ‘no’ for an answer to all their gigs.
Alistair says: “All of our tunes come from two manuscripts of folk tunes which were being used for dancing and enjoyment in Dorset in the 1820s and 30s. We’ve updated them a little, with a beat and some fun harmonies, but the traditional tunes would still be recognisable to Thomas Hardy, whose family tunebook is one of our sources.”
Over the last few years, Tatterdemalion’s seasonal ceilidhs with Dorchester Arts have proved very popular, especially with the introduction, at the behest of then-Mayor of Dorchester Gareth Jones, of the Kiddies’ Keilidh, with specially-designed dances for little legs, to encourage youngsters to try folk dance.