May Day 2025: Deptford and Camberwell

'A Salute to May Day' at St Giles Church in Camberwell on Tuesday April 30th was a lovely night promoted by Broadside Hacks and Dash the Henge. It started off with the Belles of London City morris dancing in front of the church, followed by Daisy Rickman, Goblin Band and Tealeaf playing inside. Loved Goblin Band in particular with their set of May themed songs including Birds in the Spring, the First of May, May Morning Dew and a rousing version of the Padstow May Song which had people dancing in the aisles and pews with the Belles and a horse!

Goblin Band in St Giles

On May Day itself there was a big turn out for the annual Fowlers Troop Deptford Jack in the Green procession. It started out at the Dog and Bell in Deptford, heading along to the Salt Quay on the Greenwich river front then around various local drinking places.

A personal highlight for me was seeing my first swifts of the year swooping over SE14. 'You never heard so sweet as the birds in the spring'.

Pleased to see too that Past Tense Publications has reprinted my pamphlet on the history of 'May Day in South London' which you can purchase here.

See previous posts on May Day in South London

How Does it Feel to be Loved? at Camberwell Crypt

It was a sad moment this month when the Canterbury Arms in Brixton closed its doors for the last time, due to be demolished to make way for flats. The pub hosted many music nights in its big back room, including the legendary indie-pop/soul club How Does it Feel to be Loved? - where among other things I once shook the hand of Kevin Rowland.

Emotional scenes last month at the last HDIF at Canterbury Arms

A silver lining to this cloud is that HDIF is moving to a new South London location at the Crypt in Camberwell. They say:

'The venue couldn't be more HDIF - a jazz club in the crypt underneath St Giles' church on Camberwell Church Street, it's a beautiful, atmospheric, and ever so slightly eccentric space which feels like it could have featured on the second side of "Tigermilk". It's 150 capacity... with a cool dancefloor, lots of interesting nooks and crannies for chatting in, and a great private garden for the smokers.

The Crypt runs regular jazz nights on Fridays and then the club is mostly unused for the rest of the month, so we're very lucky to have been given the first Saturday of the month. This is a new kind of venture for them and they're understandably wary about hosting a club crowd in such a refined venue, but I've assured them that our regulars are polite, well-behaved, and make frequent trips to the bar - so please come along and do us proud!

We have been given TWO CHANCES to prove ourselves. First is Saturday October 3rd and then Saturday November 7th. After that, they'll see how the nights have gone and whether they'd like to make this a regular event. If you'd like to have HDIF south of the river, please please come along and support us on these two nights. I can't see many other decent options for a HDIF south, so if this doesn't work out, then I reckon that'll be that.

We play:

The Smiths * The Supremes * The Go-Betweens * Dusty Springfield * Belle & Sebastian * Love * Tammi Terrell * Aztec Camera * The Ronettes * Orange Juice * Beach Boys * The Temptations * Velvet Underground * Felt * The Shangri-Las * Primal Scream * Otis Redding * The Field Mice * Dexys Midnight Runners * Camera Obscura * The Four Tops * Melba Moore * The Orchids

Guest DJ for the night is Chris Stride of Offbeat.'

Usual admission of £4 for members and £6 for non-members. Club will run from 9pm - 2am. Advance tickets here - http://www.wegottickets.com/event/333550

More info from http://www.howdoesitfeel.co.uk/; facebook event details here.