Long long ago, before the days of The Middlewich Paddies, this merry band of minstrels was flying the flag for folk music in Middlewich.
Three of the Kinderton Folk are instantly recognisable; on the right, in descending order are Graham Sivills, Michael 'Trampas' Woodbine, and the unmistakable Richard Devaney.
But who are the others?
No doubt someone will be able to supply the missing names.
Kinderton Folk was formed in the mid 70s and played folk club style gigs in the upstairs room at the Boar's Head among other venues.
The idea for a folk group really started with the Dane Rugby Club when Mike Hough, hearing Richard sing some bawdy rugby songs, suggested that his voice was good enough to sing something a little more - shall we say - respectable? and Kinderton Folk was the result.
Graham, Michael and Richard later got together to form the redoubtable Middlewich Paddies with the addition of Dave Thompson on guitar.
The formation of the Paddies and the idea for the Folk & Boat Festival (inspired by the Newcastleton Traditional Music Festival) led to Middlewich gaining a good reputation among folk music fans and it was this that led eventually to the town's thriving festival and music scene today.
Editor's note: When this diary entry was first published in 2013 we erroneously dated the photo as 1980. Dave Thompson has pointed out that, as shown in the Middlewich Paddies logo (below), this date is obviously wrong, as 1980 was the year that the Paddies were founded. We've speculatively changed the date for Kinderton Folk to 'circa 1975'. If anyone knows the exact date for KF, please let us know. Thanks to Dave T for pointing this out.
There's more on the Middlewich Paddies, including some music clips, on Graham Sivill's website (which itself goes back a few years):
GRAHAM'S WEBSITE
UPDATE (19th June 2018):
Graham Sivills writes:
Ha ha. OK - I might have got their surnames a bit wrong but let's go with Roger Thornton guitar. Jean Crooke and Pat Hannigan or Haddican on Banjo. Michael Trampas Woodbine on Whistle and Harmonica
First published 24th July 2013 as 'Kinderton Folk 1980'
Amended, reformatted and re-published 19th June and 20th July 2018
