In the room

There are lots of people in the room, some of whom I know, some I don't know yet, some I will never get to know.

Des and Dianne are booming with happiness, Diane was given the all-clear last week after a pretty horrible few months of chemotherapy. They're like young lovers, full of glee, they've dug out the songs they used to play years ago, this is the second coming of Des and Dianne.

Des and Dianne have been together forever. Jenny and Dave, however, have only just met, been together a whole two months, yet already they're
planning the wedding. Jenny moved in with him about 17 minutes after saying 'hello'.

All they ever talk about is love, and marriage, and the future and how fantastic their other half is. The only songs they ever sing are happy songs about love and everything turning out for the best. Don't they know this is a folk club? There aren't any happy folk songs about love. Impostors!

Karen's here with her dad. They don't perform, just here to enjoy the music. Her mum died six months ago and he never goes out now, not if she doesn't go round there and virtually drag him. It's the first time he's been for over a month. Silly really, he only lives round the corner and he loves the music, and there's a few people in the audience he knows and talks to. He's just got out of the habit.

Chris is 17, super-talented, plays a range of instruments, but he's very much in his mum's shadow. His mum murders every song she attempts,loudly, her guitar-playing equally unskilled and out of tune, but she demands applause, has to be the centre of attention, even when someone else is on stage. Chris is the ultimate introvert, shy as a shadow, quietly competent, accompanying people twice or thrice his age, never daring an attempt at vocals, not even in the singalong parts where the whole audience joins in. I like Chris.

Eloise, the new girlfriend of Dave, a nice, friendly, middle of the road girl, slightly out of her depth in the folk scene, but enthralled whenever he sings, overwhelmed that her boyfriend, a mere mortal, can create something as godlike as a song. Not just that, a song he wrote for her (though I'm sure I heard him play that song last year, when he was still with Silvie - never believe a folkie).

Jeff, memory fading, forgets the words to songs he's sung a hundred times before. Chord sequences he wrote in his prime tie his fingers into spaghetti-knots, he sings the same verse three times. No one dares tell him.

Terrence, here with his girlfriend, the raffle lady, not a singer, not actually a folkie at all. I'm just visiting. Wants to be a writer, but just short of ideas at the moment. Just sitting here, tapping his feet to the music, waiting for the inspiration to strike.