Superb concert at Calstock

This half term week has seen the Calstock Festival take place and one of the items was a concert in a former chapel in the village on Sunday evening. It was based around a theme of "Underneath the Arches" as this year the village celebrates the centenary of the building of its famous railway viaduct which in fact is not many yards away from the chapel.

The start of the evening felt very gloomy, more akin to November than May, so we felt the need to be cheered up! I have written before about Calstock Rubber Band and they were joined on this occasion by the Calstock Singers. The rubber band play a lot of very lively music but four of them calling themselves "Under the Fingers" also play in a much quieter vein. They are Rosie (Recorders and vocals), Pauline (Cello and vocals), Liz (Guitar) and Jenny (Harp). In addition to the music we had some poetry readings delivered by Harry Chambers from Peterloo Poets. The old chapel it should be said is the home for 'Peterloo Poets' and has a wonderfully big clear east window that looks beyond the Tamar to the fields on the Devon bank. It was good to see numerous house martins swooping around outside this window as we waited for the event to start.

Peterloo Poets have an informative website here and by clicking on 'About Peterloo Poets' one can see a picture of the chapel from the river.

Including the interval the whole programme was nearly three hours long, terrific value for our £4 per person concessionary payment. How the participants remained so calm and relaxed throughout amazed us - it was a truly professional performance.

I must also mention Richard Hendin the Master of Ceremonies who I didn't know but who could kept proceedings moving at the right pace with plenty of easy humour. The balance between music song and words could hardly have been bettered. All in all a truly memorable evening.