26th April 2008 - Viva La Republica event, central London

What a night!

This was an amazing evening in a whole host of ways. The Yaa Asantewaa Arts and Community Centre in London hosted a splendid evening of poetry, dance, film and music to celebrate the Spanish Republic, 1932-1939. It brought together the extended families of the Basque children, evacuated from Bilbao in 1937, and members of the International Brigade who had fought fascism at that time, and their friends and families.

We arrived early as the organisers were still setting up. We secured a small room out the back, to tune up, etc. However, before the hubbub really began, we had the chance and honour to met with Jack Jones, the former trade union leader, and an International Brigader himself and had been wounded in the Spanish Civil War. Even at 95, there was no doubting this man's conviction and intellect. It was highlight of the evening to speak with him.

The evening began with the choir from the Spanish School in London. Then there was some superb dancing by an Asturian dance troupe based in London - with a bagpipe player of astonishing dexterity - and what a sweet sound the gaitas has. Jim Jump, Herminio Martinez and others gave some excellent readings of poetry and manged well to calm an audience of c300-350. There was a very interesting film shown on the rise of fascism and the fight against fascism in Europe through the 1930s - to help set the Spanish Civil War in its historical context.

Finally we went on to play. We naturally concentrated on a mainly Spanish related set. So, we did some dance tunes and Anada Pa Julia. We sang The Bite, which went down very well. Sadly, Jack Jones had left by this time - sad because he had actually known the man to whom the song is dedicated, George Wheeler.

We sang Ron Angel's Chemical Workers' Song as an expression of the industrial link that the North East of England had had with the International Brigade.

Finally, we finished the evening with Solo Por Tres Meses. I explained that theirs was a unique audience for this song in that, in most places we perform it, it is to people who don't know the story. However, it is this audience's story and a fair number of the children that had been on the boat to Southampton were in the audience. In this sense, it was a song that we hoped would meet their approval. I am pleased to say that it did and we were applauded to the rafters at the end and asked to do an encore. This was particularly pleasing for Rob -for whom this is a very important group of people. Many friends of his parents were there alongside many friends from the world of music.

Thankfully, the new pristine copies of the new CD, with Solo Por Tres Meses had arrived in time, and we sold a lot of copies afterwards - proceeds going to the Basque Children's committee of course.

A third night home in a week; dodging double-decker buses on their last run home on a Saturday night - no wonder I sat and had a quieting bottle of beer once the car was parked up and the kit bought inside.

Attention is now turned to some upcoming Tam Lin gigs and a return to Cambridge for us - before the Broadstairs festival.

More stocks of the CD will be arriving soon and we very much feel we are taking na-mara on to the next level. This is something we are both very excited about.