OLD English folk music as alive and well on the river, as GEORGE ALLONBY discovered...

ENTERING The Lord Hood, in Creek Road, Greenwich, I could hear the screeching groans of strings being cleaned and tuned in preparation for our night’s entertainment.

Once a week, a collection of musicians play traditional English folk tunes- as many as 14 had accumulated to fill the pub with an archaic but beautifully uplifting sound.

As someone who's not used to hearing music much older than my age, this was a musical epiphany for me.

Trying to talk to the musicians proved slightly difficult as they were locked in with the sound, focussed on keeping their place.

One of the members of the ensemble pulled me to one side and said he would speak with me.
Alec Gorham, 60, plays a melodian, which bears a slight resemblance to an accordian.

"We always play traditional English folk music,” he said. “Some of the songs go back two or three hundred years. We did play Greensleeves earlier which goes back to Henry VIII's time.

“It's very important for folk music to survive, because it’s our tradition. What more can I say? It’s part of pop culture as well now. You hear the same rhythms coming through again and again.

"You might not listen to them but they’re there. We get folk music in advertising a lot, on television.

“We've been coming to The Lord Hood to play for nine years now. Before that we was at the cricketer’s pub in Greenwich which was a good old market pub.

“It’s good the people who own this pub let us play here.

“It’s the last place we’ve got in Greenwich now that will let us play.

“It’s not modern enough for the pubs now. I don’t know where we’d go if we lost this pub.”

Also making an appearance in Lord Hood’s beer hall was the producer of this play, who had come to sing some of her music with the ensemble. Her name was Celine and she told me how the capital has influenced her creative work.

She said: "I'm a writer and lyricist. So far we've done three development shows and my dream is for our play to be performed in the West End. Putting on a show requires raising a lot of money.

“I would love there to be a preview show on the river, as a floating theatre with barges and projections.

“I’m quite confident with what we’ve got. We’ve got a fantastic band, we’ve got a honky-tonk piano, melodion, gypsy guitar, trumpet, upright bass, and we’ve got a violinist.

“I think it’s so important that English folk music survives today.”

It was with a touch of sadness that I left the pub and stepped back out onto the busy main road, where traffic brought my senses crashing back to the twenty first century.

The folk music experience takes place every Tuesday night at The Lord Hood for free.