Not So Sonic Youth

The last of my 'Majestic' potatoes

The local vicar is, it turns out, the sort who likes to get people involved. Not for him a congregation who just shuffle in on Sundays. The very first time he came to visit me, ostensibly to check out my rows of vegetables (being a keen gardener himself), he ascertained that I play piano and guitar and I found myself being offered the role of youth group musical director (unpaid). Making a few non-committal enquiries I discovered that someone had been lined up to do this in the summer but hadn't ultimately showed up. There is apparently one lad who plays a bit of guitar, and another who owns a drum kit (his ability to play it remains unclear). How keen these two were to form some kind of band in the church youth group, and who else had musical ability and/or interest, was also unknown. The enthusiasm for music forming a core part of the youth group appeared to emanate predominantly from the vicar himself.

As I am planning to spend winter down in Dorset at Pilsdon Community, I had to decline the role. But he looked so disappointed, remarking that he would therefore have to do it himself, that I offered to come along in the meantime and accompany him on the piano. The group is held every other Friday evening so it wouldn't be a huge time commitment, and I thought it might be fun to get out and do something completely different.

The polytunnel is in full colour finally

So after a brief practice session in the vestry in which I found myself actually playing Kum By Yah on a plinky electronic keyboard as the vicar strummed his guitar, we drove off to the village where it was held, half an hour away. Thankfully the hall had a decent acoustic piano so the keyboard could remain in the car. I was also glad to see that there were other attractions for the young people laid on – table tennis, swingball and an electronic darts board against which darts loved to bounce off and break into pieces.

Turnout was low. At no point in the evening did the number of youth match the number of adults (four). And of the three teenagers present, none of them had brought a musical instrument or expressed any desire to play one. The only exception was when three of us adults were bashing through Yellow Submarine, one of the lads accompanied us on a single drum, with a single stick.

10kg of runner beans

So not perhaps an unmitigated success this time. The vicar and the youth leader, who apparently has to cover the whole of northwest Wales, plan to expand the age range a bit next time and plug it a bit more in the village. But an evening in a room with both a decent piano and a table tennis table (I was roundly thrashed by the vicar who mis-spent his childhood playing it) is an evening well spent, in my view, so I'm rather looking forward to the next session.



My stall at last Sunday's monthly farmer's market at the local village