SHIRLEY COLLINS You Never Heard So SweeT HASTINGS MAY 2N

"Oh to be in England that land of gypsy lavender sellers Of bedknobs, broomsticks and all sorts of fellers" "Of Runaway orphans and master thatchers Bent coppers and gangland despatchers ... Oh, and you'll never believe what I just saw, Back Picking hops with Somerset Maugham, In Of Human Bondage, Just after the great war..." There was some sort of holy magical musical magnificence in the setting of the church, cut into the hill crest, in Hastings, the seaside town of ups and downs, setting the scene for Jack In The Green

with jokers musicians/artists/workers/lovers and clowns, and they go round and around, on the may month merry, culture ripe like a cherry

Holy rolling English folk : the couple Vic and Tina of Lewes folk club fame had all the requisites of sound and screen upfront near the musical altar, the high window, glass stained, holy scene setting behind, and all around.

Local lass Shirley Collins, in some sort of easy, radiant, beneficent, shining her wise light on the treasures of the working people mode (loved her gown, her smile...). A screen showing some of the most entrancing singing apparitions, past voices, that our shared love and history has to offer.

.On the eve of the election we hear a lot about the hard working people, their hard work patronised as signifier of worth. Not here here we hear celebrated and brought to life the characters and the artistic excellence of the abandoned and the runaways, the lowly war veterans and gypsy sellers, celebrated for the natural empathy that runs through us all like a river. A life giving force isn't a tired venal politician's turn as a bad pub singer doing sub Billy Joel amateur hour Springsteen act as he pumps his hoary rancid it pumps me up message. No here we celebrate the working classes and ACTUAL MANIFESTATION OF ONE OF THE MOST VITAL WAYS OF BEING ALIVE

never heard so sweet no never what joyful wonder is amongst ye Shirley and Pip Barnes's Show dares to sieze upon transcendence as a given , bring the casual way that music magic was /is connected to our lives (IN THE same epistemology and actuality as magic) .

naturally occurring well we can swim in

Never heard so sweet the lavender selling gypsy lady Oh man those gypsy stars , heavens, like a galaxy of individuated Margaret Barry style wonders each one Lillie Cook, Turp Brown Harry Upton Enos White, you want to hear them SING EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY I left with a head full of wonder Kate took this photo

Shirley and Pip True Talking Musical Revolutionaries and dont forget Music and MAGIC!

1 and the Same thing..