Gef Lucena writes: “1962 marked the year of a traditional folk revival in Bristol and surrounding counties. I was half of the folk duo, The...

Gef Lucena writes: “1962 marked the year of a traditional folk revival in Bristol and surrounding counties. I was half of the folk duo, The Crofters, the other half being Martin Pyman and the formation of our duo coincided with the ‘Centre 42’ movement initiated by London playwright Arnold Wesker whose aim it was to ‘bring folk music back to the people’. This objective was not entirely successful, but it helped to eventually bring about the formation of a number of folk clubs in the area. For us it was of immense importance as we were being sent out to very unlikely pubs to sing alongside the likes of Francis McPeake, Louis Killen, Bob Davenport, Cyril Tawney and other top traditional singers of the day. I started songwriting around this time – songs mostly now long forgotten. The ITV station of the day (TWW – Television Wales and the West) picked up on this ‘new’ music and ran the series ‘At the Cider Apple’ and The Crofters were fortunate to be on each programme. The TWW connection lead to a commission for me to write a song to commemorate the opening of the first Severn Bridge crossing in 1966 which we performed on the day and the scratchy old version with its bucket reverb reproduced on this album is probably that very performance. Apart from three early songs most of the remainder of the songs are 2017 to 2019 compositions with some based on early drafts from around 1985.”