Our First Night Back at The Feathers

On Friday the 13th of March 2020, we made the decision to suspend club nights “for a couple of weeks”, just until we knew more about the strange virus that everybody was talking about.

Little did we know, as we’d walked out of The Feathers after a somewhat quiet Singers’ Night the previous evening, that it would be 23 months before we would be back there. In the interim, we had made do with our legendary online club nights, sixty-five of them in all, and at one point during the lockdown sessions, we had to break the news to the members that the Feathers’ function room was to become a restaurant.

And so, as restrictions were slowly being lifted the difficult search was on for a venue large enough to accommodate us in accordance with the social distancing regulations and in July 2021 were pleased to discover that the quirky circular Llanfwrog Community Centre was available.

Then a couple of weeks ago, with the news that the restrictions on pubs were being scrapped, the lovely folk at The Feathers invited us to return to their function room. The restaurant plans are on hold for now, so at least we can enjoy being back at the club’s spiritual (and original) home during the interim period.

So last Thursday was the first meeting back at The Feathers. With a bit of juggling, and utilising the small fold-up tables we had bought on Amazon, we were able to set the room out for twenty-six, with an overspill area in the newly extended rear of the room.

As time goes on and people become more comfortable with things, we may be able to squeeze in a few more – but we don’t envisage ever going back to the days of packing everyone in like sardines. The online booking system will serve to keep a cap on the numbers and make for a more pleasant evening for all concerned.

We had seventeen performers and a total of twenty-six in the room, making for an excellent evening of music that began and concluded with spots by the Tom, Dick and Harry band, with added input from Raphael Callaghan, whose excellent harmonica playing was a perfect substitute for the saxophone in the evening’s finale performance of Baker Street.

It was like we’d never been away!