The Ukes - winners at Nash 2025!!!

The comedown from the drugs is pretty tough - the drug being a long long weekend of community love and making music at the National Folk Festival (The Nash). And then you are sitting in the National Library of Australia, typing on a screen, enjoying the solitude, feeling lonely yet grateful for what has just happened.

In a rare moment of substance use, just before we did the performance of our community ukulele lives, I sank a schooner of black, my preferred brew. It relaxed me for my angry lead vocal moment (see Common People video at the bottom). Then later, safely ensconced at Auntie Jane's in the southern Canberra suburb of Stirling, I had a glass of good red, and fell soundly asleep for the rest of an early night.

The Nash was exhausting, but it was also a weekend of opportunity, which I feel started with saying YES to help someone out of a pickle. We got a phone call from a Festival Director, asking if we could put in our contribution for the Infinite Song Competition in 50 minutes. It was a mad rush. In The Nash Ukestra/Choir group chat I put in the inexplicable message 'Everyone NOW!'. I never did finish the why or what. Maybe my brain was slowly frying, maybe there was some frantic phone calls. I do remember one phone call from Jane telling me to push back and not to cancel our scheduled street gig. I told her we were doing it, and I hung up on her. Due to wonderful organising by others, and Emily's subsequent clarification of my urgent non-message, the vast majority of us gathered swiftly, to meet the fate for our few months' work. 

Yet still there was more opportunity to be had, as there was a programming gap. Once we'd arrived at the Marquee stage for our heat, we were asked if we could perform an additional song. Of course I said yes, relishing the chance to do one of our recently favourited songs, in addition to our Rolling Stones cover. Two songs on a main stage!!!! What an elevation from being a 'mere' bunch of ukulele and choir street performers!

I Don't Miss You

Bec - lyricist/cajonist/idiot

For months we've workshopped and practised our entry for the National Folk Festival's Infinite Song Competition. This year the allocated artist was The Rolling Stones, where scheduled artists can contribute one interpretation. Generally I'm more of a Beatles guy but I did love Miss You as a 1978 teen. I suggested this song to Jane, and then to my Thursday night ukestra mob. One of them - Bec - is a parody song lyricist par excellence for significant birthdays. Her table companions on this particular night were Jo and Cathy. In the break they workshopped some ideas, with Bec coming back some days later with a brilliant and gentle feminist reworking. It pretty much reconfigured the unreconstructed masculine Puerto Rican girls dyin' ta meet you! vibe.

Cathy Crowley - dude...

Some weeks later, Jane and I talked about putting in a 'rap' of some sort, and Jane suggested the legendary Julia Gillard misogyny speech as the starting point. One of our Nash stablemates has actually done a lovely creative reworking of that too. (You can see a link for that at the bottom of this post). 

But this was different, and Cathy Crowley our resident "white middle-aged suburban mother of two rapper" (self-identified) came up with something that pleased us all, and revved up the song's pace beautifully. But we also had other secret ukemyth-busting weapons.

Women and their Boxes 

Jane and Kathy on their boxes

We've recently discovered Spark Mini amplifiers and are besotted with how they can transform our standard ukulele sound. Jane likes to call them simply 'boxes', and she also likes to put forward women as the chief box players. Across the front we had Will, Kathy and Jane, providing reliable lead, rhythm and riff parts to complement the harp like sounds of the massed ukuleles behind.

We won

The competition is just for fun, but a win is a win. And whilst there is kudos, there is also, more importantly, a wonderful experience and an excuse to come together to dress up, collaborate and create as a community. With this done, we had already won before we left home for the five hour drive. But to perform twice on the Budawang stage is no small fry, and plenty of our mob were freaking out just before. But I reckon every single one of our mob would now rush back on stage in a flash. It's addictive. We won our heat, we won the final, we got asked to play the finale concert. AND we got asked to play two songs at that final concert. What a buzz, what a privilege.

But for me it was also a trip of nostalgia back to 2006 when I won the same comp with my Bendigo band voicepopfoible. Video wasn't so common back then, and we have no film footage of it, just lots of stills like this. That year the selected artist was Queen - can you tell? Kate, the current organiser, remembered me from winning back then.

There's Kate, working the decibel meter, 19 years ago.

Ken - Morris Dancer/Philosopher

After my National Library session on this keyboard, Jane and I visited the Pompeii exhibition at the National Museum of Australia. Midst the pumice, dead bodies and trinkets, I ran into Ken, a man behatted in the way that only a Morris Dancer can sport. I asked 'How was your Nash?'. He said great! We talked about things Morrisy and Ukulele, and of course I boasted of our win. He then said something like "I'm an ecologist and I reckon Morris dancers and Ukulele groups can be equated to a keystone species in a healthy ecosystem -  it's everywhere, and sorta under-appreciated or maligned, but it's a species that you can't do without".  

Older, fatter, still colourful.

In the folk environment, I equate ukulele as a 'gateway drug'. I go into the session bar and marvel and quaver at the talent. I am completely intimidated. And I soon leave. But at the Festival Ukes each morning, everyone is welcome, and the songs are accessible. 'Try this, you'll like it'. And from there you can only get better. And you are welcome. The gateway is to community, but also to musicianship.  Both are really sympatico.

I'll take Ken's ecological metaphor. It's far better than the pejorative quip I hard from a hardened top notch professional muso ....

 ....ahhh.....the ukulele....the cockroach of the music world....

We defy your viewpoint Mr UnRemembered Professional Muso, and we raise you a community and an unbridled sense of happiness, contentment and achievement.

Thank-you National Folk Festival for a wonderful experience, yet again.

Here's the winning Infinite Song Competition 2025 performance

And here is the support song - Common People ...

Sorta References

Cathy Crowley and Sparrow Folk

A bit of Jo Maunsell context  

Bronwyn Calcutt's Misogyny reworking

Thank-you Neil - shaper and builder of communities

It's crazy. The last time I posted in this virtual place was for a sort of obituary - three years ago. I don't want it to be that way, but much time and a pandemic has passed since I first established ukestras in the Hunter Valley in late 2009, and there has been much much baton passing, generational change and, as one should reasonably expect, passings on/away/over. A spade is a spade. Except when we talk about death.

Of course one never wants the circumstance nor the obligation to write a vale / obituary (for want of better words). But it is important to mark significant mileposts, and to reflect on the privilege of having known these folk, a shared history, and the significant place such people have had in one's life. Not that I want to diminish the importance of our current community, but thankfully ukestrans keep renewing, and dare I say, seem to be getting younger. (Although perhaps it is now I that am older).

Neil - one of the first

Neil Weaver was a stalwart of the foundational history of our ukestras.  Many ukestrans now would not know of Neil. The exception is, of course, current ukestran, Tonia - his daughter. Her continued presence in our lives is testament to the quite literally inter-generational nature of our music-making, and (presumably) of the fine role-modelling of her parents. 

The people who were my first students were also the people who shaped this peculiarly Novocastrian culture and community into what it is today - a community whose key attributes are welcoming and inclusive. At least we like to think so.

Neil was key amongst those folk who discovered the joys of creating community through the ukulele, and then were keen to proseltyse for it, and nurture newcomers. He was the biggest, gentlest crooner and ukulele player, an ox of the determined community-minded variety. He was invincible, until he was not. 

Neil came along to ukestra with his life love Margaret in early 2010. But he also came to uke with prior musical skills, having been a long time drumming leader for his local bagpipe band. We were privileged that this inseparable pair, pillars of their community, came to lend their strength and welcomingness to a new musical community.

Innately they ‘got it’. They saw through the facade of music, mayhem and fun (of which they became a part), and knew that they were also a part of something bigger. They knew that, for it to work well, someone had to do the work. That someone was them as they were among the first to step up. From Tuesday nights, to Tuesday afternoons, to Wednesday mornings with Danielle, Neil and Margaret were reliable friendly fixtures at a variety of ukestras for many years.

In 2011 they were a part of a small mob that were the first Australian community group to perform at the Hawai'i Ukulele Festival. In 2012, their willingness to help, and their love of community music meant that Neil and Margaret were there at the inception of the Newkulele Festival, and then in the hard work necessary to get such an event off the ground. Neil’s SES and electrician experience saw him fill an important planning, logistical and ladder climbing role as a key volunteer. Together we built one of Australia's premier ukulele festivals.

Neil, big and reliable in the back row. Margaret, short and smiley in the front row.
The Ukastle Ukestra at the 2011 Hawai'i Ukulele Festival.

Side by Siders

Neil and Margaret's diverse skills, and a commitment to working for the community after their ‘retirement’, meant much to the evolution of the broader Novocastrian ukulele community. Whilst honing their collective community music skills, Neil and Margaret gathered together a bunch of ukestrans to head out and play in nursing homes and retiree/service clubs (Probus and the like). And so the Side by Siders were born, the first offshoot of our ukestras. 

Sadly the Side by Siders never survived much past Margaret’s passing, although offshoots of offshoots have continued to evolve. Neil and Margaret’s commitment to the happy marriage of ‘music’ in the service of ‘community’ was testament to their broader sense of obligation to community service. 

In a way this musical hobby seemed a natural extension of their commitment to the local State Emergency Service, the volunteers who are always there in dangerous times. One can easily imagine that Neil, the electrician, would have provided essential skills and knowledge to the chaotic environments wrought by natural disasters. 

Finely honed skills are all very well and good in the fabric of community, but without the intent of good, there is no such thing as the fabric of society. The way that Neil weaved his life, and the way that he did whatever it took to get things done, that is what makes a community.

Of course he is missed, but his legacy and good work endure.

An Ukulele Epitaph for Someone Not Yet Gone (but nearly)

Christmas 2011, Maitland.

Chris Morley is being shown the door.  

And this, friends, is the 'problem' with community. 

For despite all their frailties and foibles, you get to hang out with people; you get to know them. And then they die, and you miss them.

You miss their wordiness, or their caustic view of the world. Or you miss their compassion and loving heart. You miss a whole swathe of emotions, behaviours and tics that cleave them to you, and they colour you and your life. 

All of this because, together, you decided to act, to participate in some common purpose. Not because you necessarily liked them, or loved them, or that they are family or lovers - they are not your obligatories. Rather, they are part of a world that you have both decided to create. 

Chris played ukulele too loud. His rhythm would swamp others, and not necessarily in a good way. His songs and poems were deep - deeper, and longer than many had the time for. 

I didn’t know Chris all that well, but from what I did hear, he was a good human being focussed on social justice. I know he was a poet. A musician. A songwriter. A think he was a good leftie, and possibly some sort of anarchistic compassionate, generous church going Christian. I think I also heard he was handy with a hammer and screwdriver, with a renovator’s mindset. In one way he was an enigma to me, a person who appeared, and then would not be seen for a year or two, then return, covered in plaster dust and paint. He apparently was older than his dyed hair belied. (Well, someone once whispered to me their suspicions). 

Not everyone could see the way that Chris saw things. But I felt I did. He was my sort of guy, a complex, passionate, creative, intelligent, skittish and skilled oddball. I understood and appreciated his depth of compassion and inquiry, but at times I didn’t appreciate the time that some of his soliloquies took. 

Christmas 2011 - what a surly looking bastard

I’m using the past tense here, but you’re not gone yet, are you Chris? From what I hear on the interwebs, it sounds as though your passing is loving and peaceful. With a lover like Nicola, it surely will be. 

Thank you so much for the colour you brought to the outer circles of my world, and to many many others in our little ukulele world here in Newcastle. I hope you are around long enough, and with enough presence of mind, to appreciate my small piece of doggerel. I hope I haven't kept you too long. For at times I tend to be a little too much like you.

Love to you Chris. Loved your singing and passion.

Mark.

Chris at Danielle Scott's farewell 2018

Postscript
Nicola found the above video of Chris singing at Ukestra 4 years ago.  Their daughter then asked Chris to reprise it. He's still got it. Here's Chris singing Heavy Heart in August 2021, off by heart, with not a lot of energy, but full of passion.

Chris and Nicola's Facebook post from 29 August 2021

Dear friends of Chris, this is his wife Nicola. You may or may not know that Chris has been living with metastatic pancreatic cancer for the last 18 months. Unfortunately all the treatments have stopped working and now the cancer will run its course. Chris is fairly comfortable at home with his loving family, good pain killers and daily support from the palliative care team. I was thinking that he might get some pleasure from hearing some stories, memories or poems from friends (not soppy!!). You can send to me and I will read to Chris. Take care, stay safe. Love from Chris and Nicola.

Anzac Day 2021 - Ambivalence and Quinces

It’s dawn and I write. I don’t know what. But I know why. It's ANZAC Day, and I am never sure what to do.

I’m the son of a World War II soldier. He had shrapnel in his knee, he had tears when music, mates and memory collided. He was a good dad, with residual pain and occasional demons from losing a brother, and presumably from killing, and from nearly being killed. The horrors of war is not just a pithy phrase; it is literal and visceral. I have no idea how you carry those emotional scars with you for the rest of your life. I don't understand, and don't really want to accept the human culture that asks this of young men.

As a teenager I arced up about war and its place in our national identity. Me, the offspring who actually got accepted into the Navy, but then turned it down. When the two Navy recruiters showed up at our house in 1978 to see where they went wrong, Dad sniped: “I don’t know what happened son, but I think the peacies have got to you”.

He was right, albeit described with a word that was new to me.

Quinces, awake and a woke

I’ve been awake since 3:09am. Not because it is ANZAC Day, but because yesterday I was exhausted, and went to bed early. I have abluted, sliced and stewed quinces, and listened to a really interesting chat – Are the Australian Military too Woke? Let’s not forget, says the learned retired lieutenant / academic, that the military are here to be violent in sanctioned ways, to kill with the greatest humility and precision. This is the reality, and it is exactly what I decided that I couldn't come at. 

Upon realising that me joining the navy meant me possibly killing someone, my teenage self retreated. I didn't want to be that sort of human. Not too long after this I became a vegetarian. Still am.

I know the paradoxes and intersections of peace, violence and freedom  but I cannot reconcile them. I'm with Moxy Fruvous who so eloquently (and Canadianly) said: 

We'd like to play hockey, have kids and grow old.

When I ride my bike on the shared footpath/bikeway, I usually whistle, instead of ringing my bell. Instead, today in the pre-dawn light I sang their Gulf War Song. 

We got a call

to write a song 

about the war in the gulf, 

but we shouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. 

So we tried, 

but then gave up 

cause there was no such song, 

but the trying was very revealing.

Have a listen. It's a beautiful acapella number. 

A fractured ANZAC Day

In the ride to town, I pass a number of COVID-cautious ceremonial podcast blasts emanating from open car doors in auspicious ocean viewing car parks, broadcasting to small bemedalled gatherings in the dawn. At 6am I'm at Estabar. In front of me there is a COVID rump of people, listening to the murmur of an amplified speaker, a mumble from here, the occasional bagpipe there, and then the final resting trumpet.

Later today many people will be very drunk, celebrating whatever it is we celebrate about such complex matters. Drowning their sorrows, their own internal lifelong residual pain. Except most of those people ironically have never 'served'. That irks me. Just another day, just another excuse to get completely trolleyed and then perhaps punch a stranger.

I have played the Last Post ceremonially. Most poignantly it was at Dad's funeral some 30 years ago. My oldest brother was quite jealous of my act of common heritage with Dad, the damn peacenik who farewelled Frank Jackson with the Last Post, holding back the tears, keeping a stiffish upper lip so that that obligatory refrain could be completed through well disciplined lips.

I suppose life and death is just one big contradiction, and I clearly struggle, and have great uncertainty and definite unwillingness to participate in an ambiguous celebratory public ritual. Writing helps me acknowledge my internal conflicts and uncertainties. I am no saint, and I have no idea how I really would react in the face of violence that directly threatens me or others. I go out of my way to avoid any sort of violence. Other men cross the street to seek it out. 

RIP Dad, I will never know what you went through. 

With love, your quince loving son.

The Safari Suit - a story of Community

Robin and Batman

Identity Crisis

A bit like Bruce Wayne and the Boy Wonder, at festivals they never quite know who we are or what to call us.

Mark and Jane? Jack n Jel? Ukestra? The Sum of the Parts? One Song Sing? Batman or Dick Grayson? 

In the dog eat cat world of social media marketing we are the ukulele equivalent of that classic, and awfully unhealthy, Australian dessert. Trifle is made up of bits of sweet stuff, but you just can't put your finger on what makes it really good. Same goes for Jack n Jel.

Actually, we always know who we are, but Festival marketing people always seem to be in a quandary. And people walk up to Jane and call her Jill (an easy mistake – she is the 'Jill' part of the Jack n' Jel).  It Is our own fault, but I guess that can be expected when setting up a genuine-on-the-ground community music business. Are you a business or not? Why yes we are! We are called ... no ….  it’s called …. um, we call that thing ….  ah damn it. It’s community. It’s music. We make a living. Let’s call it quits.

In fact we are calling it quits for our hitherto annual North American jaunt. This is our 9th and our last. Hopefully it won’t be a ‘Johnny Farnham last’ (don’t worry, Australian readers will understand that reference).

Truth is we sorta can no longer reconcile this global gallivant whilst staring down the barrel of climate change. Something’s gotta give, and that something someone somewhere starts with us staying at home. It’s a nice enough place. Good people, beautiful spot, fresh fruit and veges. What more could a human want?

Enough of that. It’s too sad. Too real. Let’s talk about something else. Like this suit.

The identity of the Safari Suit 

This suit is my dress suit, all festival-pressed-ready for a series of festivals in Canada. The fashion is quintessential southern hemisphere 1970s colonial – the safari suit. It’s a laugh, but a laugh with a good story.

This safari suit is a special one. Very special, for it travelled through the fires and laundry presses of 1970s indigenous Australian politics.

Marion is one of my delightful ukestans at Port Stephens, a woman of, with, and within a lifetime commitment to community, health and social justice. She leapt into ukulele after her husband, Les, passed away.

But Les was not just Les. Les was Les Johnson, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in the 1970s Whitlam Government. Les, like Gough, was a legend. In three turbulent years, Gough Whitlam and his team of merry madmen and women transformed Australia from a fusty 1950s dream, and thrust us on various paths of modernisation for our culture and our economy.

The iconic representative moment for Australia’s Indigenous people was when Gough passed ‘a handful of sand’ through Vincent Lingiari’s hands, symbolically returning the land to its original, more gentle, and less avaricious owners.

Marion gave me this suit. It was Les’s. I like to think it was there. At that very moment this suit soaked up the Whitlam Government's message of justice, diversity and respect.

I love it. And I trust the Canadians will also enjoy it. But unfortunately Jane just can’t seem to get beyond the bad out of date fawn fashion disaster that it no doubt is in 2019. My hope is that the story helps to redeem its apparently execrable fashion qualities.

Our taonga, our sacred object. That which brings us together. The ukurere.

Tucked under the head of my Maton ukulele is a piece of pohutukawa. But in the pōwhiri it has the honour of being rākau whakaara. And my ukulele? Let's call it my taonga in this ceremony. It felt like both got married last weekend in a wee town on the far side of Aotearoa.

We first did so 2 years ago. It was an incredible time then, and so it is again.

The gentleman is not being so gentle. 

He is visibly and audibly angry at me, and at the hordes of manuhiri (visitors) who have walked up from the beach, onto the land of these people, the tangata whenua. With no shirt (man is he buff!), a traditional flax skirt (piupiu) which clicks loudly with each lunge and sway, and a mighty whacking stick of some sort (taiaha), he, and his angry face, are something fearsome. I'm told that the apparent anger is the way they make people welcome in these parts, a ritualised challenge to we visitors, and to get us to display our intentions, good or otherwise. But the cultural legacy, for me, as pakeha, is fear. I can't help it. Otherwise I am just a tourist.

Thanks to Kiri, all of that anger is being channelled at me, for I represent the hordes of damn Aussies following me up the path. I am grateful that Kiri is there, guiding me in the protocols. Go Forward! STOP! WAIT! PICK UP THE STICK WHEN HE PUTS IT DOWN! All of these are whispers, but they are received with urgency. Don’t take a wrong step Mark.

Where’s the 'stick' (rākau whakaara)? The angry bloke, with his larger mate, are waving their taiaha around, right in front of me. I feel like they are threatening to take my head off, but I stand my ground, and hold their wide eyes. He reaches around behind, and pulls out a piece of pohutukawa, the rākau whakaara. I am struggling, holding my taonga, (my Maton ukulele), my crumpled piece of paper (my mihi), and his eyes which watch my every step. He places the rākau whakaara on the ground, and I make a move to pick it up. He gets even more angry, scything his taiaha, fiercely pointing at the rākau whakaara that I am to pick up, but I (truly) leap back in fear.

Things seem to calm down a bit, he takes a cautious move away, his eyes always on me. Kiri whispers ‘ok’, and I retrieve the rākau whakaara. Great. Now three important things to juggle, my mihi (now crumpled and sweaty), my taonga, and now the rākau whakaara, which somehow seems to represent a temporary agreement sacrament between me and the tangata whenua. The two warrior men seem satisfied, and go back to join their people.

This bunch of beautifully dressed, harmonising, fiercely haka-ing tangata whenua are Te Whakatohea. They are the original people of this region. They are the proud people of Opotiki. They are also the  regional winners of this year's Kapa Haka competition, and will soon be going on to Wellington to compete in Te Matatini - the National Kapa Haka Competition.

An older gentleman steps forward. He is bald, clean shaven, his entire head covered in tattoos. He is the showman running the pōwhiri. But to say 'showman' is almost to to imply disrespect. None meant, for this man is Dudu Maxwell, a kaumatua - a venerated elder. He explains, in English, all of the elements we are witnessing. He cracks jokes, they sing waiata, they haka some more, sing a bit, and then, something gets lost in translation. They forget that I too have a story and a waiata to share. After 20 minutes or so of being entirely immersed and educated, he seems to be winding things up. Has he remembered me? Us? Someone says something, and he goes ‘oh! Someone is going to respond’?!

That’d be me, the big man (who feels little inside). I uncrumple my mihi and commence.

‘Tena koutou! Tena koutou’.

In Te Reo (Maori language), I thank them for hosting us so generously in 2017. We are from the large swimmer crab to the left (or Ahiteraria – Australia – there are no ‘Ls’ in Maori), from Newcastle, from Yohaaba, from Merewether.

We are here because of ukureretanga (our culture, brought together by our taonga, the ukulele). It brings us joy, it brings us music-making – ko whakatangitangi, it brings us together. And then we offer our gift, our song, our waiata, which is one of theirs. Not awfully well known, but 30 of us start to sing, no ukureres, but we sing in Te Reo, and we do so with good voice. There are clearly murmurs from the other side. That pakeha fella, he has done well, speaking Te Reo (maybe they laughed a bit at my accent), and now his people are singing in Te Reo. They are alright.

And then it felt like the ultimate respect and tribute - they step forward, and sing with us. We all sing our waiata together. And with this we are joined together.

Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

We are joined. We are joined. We are all joined together.

As Kiri said later in a Facebook exchange

Kei te pai, grasshopper

Vale Maitland Ukestra - Long Live the Pluckers!

Hello Ladies and Gents,

It's not you, it's me.


It is with sadness that I am letting you know that I have decided to stop doing Maitland Ukestra.
It's been 8 and a bit years. That's a significant portion of my life, and it's been a wonderful journey, both socially and musically. Maitland Ukestra / Paterson Pluckestra has been so integral to the evolution of our musical life in the ukestras, and to the initial thought that perhaps I could eventually make a living out of this lark.

April 2018

Reasons are numerous, but in the main it's probably about simplifying my life a little, away from the ritual of driving to Maitland from Fingal Bay every Monday. I will miss the drive, and I will miss the Monday night camaraderie shared over a schooner of black and a wealth of good musicians. It is gratifying (and one of my main goals) that many of you already get together on other nights of the week. But life continues to move on, and so I will.

Reflections and thanks...

I started the first ukestra in Newcastle exactly 9 years ago. By July 2010 I had started one in Maitland, and with that I felt my immediate financial life was more secure. It seemed like a bloody miracle.


The People

We've been through numerous supportive and notable characters.  I believe Evelyn would be the longest standing of the old guard, always quick with a quip and suggestions. Not long after that it was Bob, who of course departed our Hunter shores late last year. Bob became, and still is, a good friend.  But of course, as Alfred E. Neumann once famously said, "absence makes the heart grow fonder...of someone else who's around". And so space and time now separate us. Bob wrote and suggested many songs - some parodies (the immediately execrable Kurri Kurri Eleebana), and the originals (the unforgettable and eminently singable and prescient 'Today Might be the Day'). Most of these I took to other ukestras, often to be performed at various festivals. I also have Bob to thank for my wedding venue, where Jane and I got married 4 years ago (almost exactly!). It was a splendid affair, and we were privileged (with my two bridesmaid daughters) to spend our wedding night at Bob and Liz's.


After starting at the Grand Junction Hotel (lovingly often called 'The Junkyard') in 2010, in mid 2012 we decided that we might be better served by moving to Paterson. On Monday 29 October 2012 two or three fellas turned up at the Paterson Tavern after a swell weekend at the Newkulele Festival. I was notably absent, thinking I deserved a rest.  I think those might've been Chris, Trevor and Cameron. The first two have been real regulars, and the latter one very sporadic, but I still know his name and talents. All three gentlemen are fine musicians. I know I've taught some of them some things, but probably I've probably learned more from Trevor than he has learned from me...although he is still shit at filing. I recommend that you do NOT attend any of his purported "filing classes".


The move to Paterson brought us two locals, one perhaps more irregular than regular in more ways than one. Judy has been extraordinarily supportive and forthright in her own quiet way. Ian too, but in his own peculiar way. Rest in Peace Campbell, you are well missed.


Farley, the Kates, and the Kens have also been regulars, as have Ray, Neil, Lynne, Maurene, and Annita. Some irregulars to be mentioned would be Vicki and Virginia. We managed to avoid getting any health notice slapped on us, but this never prevented a few people leaving the planet during my 8+ years, the aforementioned Campbell, Doug, and the real estate agent whose name I cannot remember. On the more youthful end of the spectrum we've had Rosie and Kia, and let's not forget Liam who grew up into the Junkyard Family through the ukestra from age 14. When he attained his majority, he prioritised other allocations for his limited discretionary expenditure.

These are the notable long stayers. There have of course been a constellation of others, coming and going for whatever reasons. But one defining factor of Maitland Ukestra over the years has been the building of playing skills and some of the rich and gorgeous voices, some there from the beginning, others discovered, some delicate, some blowing your head off. I am grateful for the friendships and acquaintances I have made, and for the support and inspiration.


The Venues

Liss of the Junkyard - Christmas 2010 

I have to say thanks to Ben and Liss in particular, from the Junkyard. It truly is Newcastle's greatest pub. Shame it's not in Newcastle. They have been such a support to me, farewelling us with grace to Paterson, and then welcoming us back, ready for our second marriage, all being forgiven. Not that there was anything to forgive, other than poor lighting. It is very odd indeed that as I write this requiem for the Maitland Ukestra, I receive a life-changing note from Ben & Liss saying that they are terminating their two decade tenure as active creators of that most wonderful musical oasis. Gosh they'll be missed and we can only hope that their custodial mantle will be passed on with the reverence that is due.

Many ukestrans of yore will not forget our first big Christmas party at the Junkyard in 2010. Novocastrians caught the train up, filled the restaurant and partied as if they had never enjoyed playing music together before. Prior to the rise of the ukulele that was certainly true for so many people, so it was understandable that it was a party to remember.


Nicole at the Paterson Tavern was also very welcoming, for four years or something like that. I wonder if the same blokes are still gathering on the front verandah as they've apparently done for aeons.

A balmy November evening at the Paterson Tavern

My apologies for the length of this dissertation. Too long and too many C#dims for Errol, I suspect. I miss Errol, the original Patersonian curmudgeon. He is, of course, still playing music, but he turned to the dark side....those damn banjos.

The Performances

The Pluckers have impressed at each Newkulele Festival, and at Ukestra Showcases, and numerous local festivals (Planet Dungog being notable), not to mention a variety of local bashes. Who can forget a major festival performance where one recalcitrant member had to be dragged swaying from the bar to complete their performance duties. Our most recent performance at the 2018 Newkulele Festival was clearly our best. Such finesse. More important than the performances however, is the preparation leading up to these. For it is in these crucibles that friendships are found, and community is formed. Rehearsals and time together brings people together, makes you aware of the foibles of individuals, and affirms the reasons why you play music rather than live with them. No affairs have ever occurred (to my knowledge, or at least become public knowledge).

An evening at Evelyn's.

What Now?
As mentioned before, many of you already get together as musical compadres. And some of you come down to ukestras in Newcastle. You are of course welcome to do that, and any uketen credit you have can be used there. Ken and his crew at the village in Morpeth are also now having regular sessions, and U3A in Maitland with Anne Robinson I hear is a pretty vibrant community.

However Chris Robinson has agreed to be a contact person for those who wish to keep Monday nights going. No money is forecast to change hands. This is so gratifying, and I am grateful to Chris for instigating this. He, Ray and Trevor (and I suspect others) have taken it upon themselves to take initial musical responsibility for the continuation of Monday nights. Chris's email address is crob4884 @ bigpond . net . au if you wish to involved. May it go from strength to strength!


For those of you who wish to get a refund on any unused portion of their uketens, please just write and ask. Our database works wonders, so we'll have tabs on where you are up to, so just let us know.
Plans are still a little uncertain, but it seems like the final Maitland ukestra session will be 26 November, with a dinner out somewhere to follow on Monday 3 December.


I really am grateful for the support I have received in Maitland, and for the various communities that our work has coalesced over the years. My goal has always been to help people make music together. We've been extraordinarily successful in the Hunter, and of course I am proud of this.

The Maitland Mercury photo that kicked it off in 2010

But for now my direct work in Maitland is done. Keep making music together, it is good for you.


Much love (excessively gooey, I know),

Mark.