Rolling Hills Folk Club

26/06/2026

A belated post to THANK everyone who made our June 5th Zoom and our June 19th live Rolling Hills Folk Club nights so special before our summer break.

Our Zoom club ran until 10 pm to give us an earlier finish after Jenny's 22 elbow staple removal experience in Edinburgh. An impressive scar and physio exercises are now the order of the day in between enjoying summer!
Our Zoom contributors as usual delivered a great variety of material and we are all so lucky to be able to share in this musical joy across the miles.

Our live club in Darnick Village saw us welcome Dave and Mair Hytch to our beautiful venue after their stay in Perth. Dave is a regular Zoom contributor from his North Wales home and it was wonderful for everyone to hear his deep voice and great guitar playing in Darnick Village Hall. Dave & Mair were very impressed by the warm welcome and friendliness of our club and hope to return for more! We really hope so.

In spite of holidays and illnesses we had a good turnout and great songs, tunes and renditions including nostalgic remembrances from several regular performers. And Graham's jokes kept us on our toes too!!
The evening was made extra special with the singing of a beautiful Shetland lullaby sung as a first ever contribution at the Club by Liz from St Boswells. Her mother sang this and her research has failed to find any formal recognition of this though a Shetlander has kindly provided the notation. Between us all we hope to get this checked and included in various archives, including The Roud Index and Kist O Riches
(Tobar an Dulchais).
The gems that arise through our shared musical connections continue to reveal a treasure trove for everyone to enjoy.

The other very significant highlight of our evening was to have Ron Anderson back in the room and singing well after his scary few months, which is involving a lot of strength and resilience to get back to everything he loves!
So the evening was extra special in so many ways!

And another bonus, after her health issues, was to have Jenny Anderson with us to deliver a Pam Ayres' poem in style!

The Andersons want to thank EVERYONE who supports the club in any way, both live and on Zoom to keep music happening.

We have also really appreciated all the individual support through our challenging moments!

Looking forward to welcoming everyone back to Zoom on Friday September 4th and to the live club on Friday September 18th.

In the meantime, stay safe, enjoy summer in whatever way you can.
Hopefully that can involve some live music or watch from home some of the many festival streams on-line with a cool drink in your hand🎵🎼🎻🪕🪗🎶

18/06/2026

Quick reminder for our live Rolling Hills Folk Club tomorrow night, Friday June 19th, in Darnick Village Hall.
This is your last opportunity before we close for July and August.
Please bring your songs, jokes poems or tunes.
And of course we also value our appreciatuve audience so no pressure to perform!
There will of course be the legendary raffle and tea or coffee is available for a donation.

22/05/2026

Great to see our gig photo featured in this summary by Milton Hide of their recent tour which included Rolling Hills Folk Club in Darnick Village in The Scottish Borders.
We loved meeting Jim and Jo and although our audience was small the feedback about the evening and about the wonderful performance of Milton Hide has been brilliant.

By sharing posts like this we hope we may encourage more folk to visit and appreciate local venues AND to recognise all the work involved in bringing live music to communities.
The musicians work so hard to deliver great performances which means many many hours, days and months of planning, preparation, rehearsing and 'polishing' and plenty of travelling and of course there are organisers behind the scenes and so many willing helpers to set up and tidy venues for the next users.

Thankyou to everyone who keeps supporting live music which is vital to ensure our lovely folk club remains able to welcome guests in their future.

Please keep spreading the word whenever and wherever you can!

And thankyou again to Milton Hide for engaging so wonderfully with our appreciative audience.

.
We had 4 wonderful gigs - audience numbers ranged from 8 to 26 but all that did come out enjoyed themselves and we had some really lovely comments. We heard brilliant floor spots and had lots of interesting conversations.
We were away for 11 days - including a day spent dropping off the dog with family. I’m also now on my way to collect said dog, this time taking the train and doing it over 2 days.
We slept in a van - mostly by the roadside to save money on accommodation. We used cheap campsites on 2 nights so we could shower and were put up for one night. The van was so cold I slept in a woolly hat and socks every night. But it was a comfy bed!
We travelled 1500 miles - 300 of these were due to dropping off the dog and detouring to Scotland via Wales because we wanted to. We took the opportunity to see some amazing sites.

On paper, the tour doesn’t add up but we had an excellent time and know how to do things better next time.

It is heartbreaking to see clubs suffering from such low numbers. We want to do what we can to help keep these brilliant sources of music alive. That’s why we set up The Roots List , to try to help clubs promote themselves, to help people find clubs in the areas they are in, to get everyone networking and working together.

17/05/2026

What a wonderful night we enjoyed with Milton Hide at Rolling Hills Folk Club on Friday in Darnick Village where Jim and Jo took us on a fascinating journey through their beautiful songs, written from the heart about so many topics. Their love of performance shone through in every word and note.

The beauty of goldfinches, the joy of all aspects of nature, the horrors of modern slavery, the importance of knowing when to let go and change direction and the hope we can gain from seeing life breathing back into a neglected house were just a few of the subjects covered.. And they now realise that their Hastings Fire Hills are perhaps mere hillocks and that against the clear blue Scottish skies our gorse/whin is spectacularly on fire at the moment.

Sorry we couldn't organise warmer weather or a warmer venue -the latter was an unfortunate glitch for which the Hall Trustees apologise.

We also hoped for a larger audience but those who came along really enjoyed the evening and enjoyed all the banter before & after the gig with Milton Hide AND also Colin the Caterpillar who was an early birthday cake for Jenny Anderson!

As usual we enjoyed so many varied floor spots and were really thrilled to welcome Emma to RHFC for the first time. She gave us a real treat as she filled the Hall with the skirl of the pipes and thankfully Jenny captured this on video for Ron who was so sad to miss Emma. Hopefully she'll return in June!

We wish Jim and Jo a safe and warmer onward journey south and look forward to seeing them again in the future.

And again we want to thank everyone for all their help in setting up ( including Jim) and clearing up AND for all the kind wishes for Ron Anderson. He hopes to see everyone at the final club of the season on Friday June 19th when one lucky raffle winner will get the latest CD kindly donated by Milton Hide.

09/05/2026

Rolling Hills Folk Club is really looking forward to welcoming Jim and Jo, aka Milton Hide, to our beautiful Darnick Village Hall in Darnick Village on Friday May 15th for our next Club Night.

This wonderful duo, all the way from East Sussex, will be showcasing their vocal and instrumental talents on guitar and clarinet with their uplifting and heart-warming material- just what we all need right now!
You can risk arriving at the door or phone 07881 376002 to book your space and pay by BACS.
£8/accompanied under 18s free.
Doors open at 19.30 BST for the club starting at 20.00.
BYOB.

03/05/2026

What can we say but a massive thankyou to everyone who logged on to be part of the Zoom Rolling Hills Folk Club on Friday night.

It was the most perfect ' welcome home' for both Ron Anderson and Jenny Anderson, seeing so many happy faces from far and wide.

I still can't quite believe that Ron sang and played mandolin for everyone, after all that he has been through and all that he is coping with but that's Ron!!!

Thanks very much to Sarah Gulliver for being a co-host to keep me and others right and here's to the next Zoom on Friday June 5th.

And please spread the word to anyone in The Scottish Borders or nearby that we have the excellent Milton Hide performing at our live club in Darnick Village on Friday May 15th.

01/05/2026

Good morning to all our Rolling Hills Folk Club friends and followers and today, a special message for all our Zoom clubbers!

Tonight's session WILL go ahead but may be slightly shorter than usual and the evening will be running with Ros Anderson very thankfully assisted by Sarah Gulliver as co-host who will take full control as and when!

We know some folk have been wondering as The Anderson Family have had quite a time lately and the last few days have been more than challenging in terms of dramatic health-related events for 2 of the trio.

This post is not inviting comment but just saying that 'THE SHOW WILL GO ON'!

Not surprisingly the thought of cancelling was a negative from Ron Anderson!!!

The very positive news is that Ron Anderson will hopefully be on screen for a short time as we hope will Jenny Anderson as they have made great progress but plenty of recovery and rest needed.

We very much appreciate all the kind supportive messages and apologies from Ros for not yet communicating individually with everyone who has been in touch directly. We really appreciate every one of you.

See you on screen later from wherever you are across this beautiful world!

22/04/2026

A quick question does anyone have tickets to see Grannys Attic on the second of May in Berwick or would anyone like 2 tickets to see them with me?