BEFORE THE MIDDLEWICH DIARY: RICHARD DEVANEY IN A KILT 1973

HERE'S ONE FROM MAY 2011

From Facebook, 13th May 2011


For Mr Ian Murfitt and all his other fans here by popular request is 
the  notorious 'Richard Devaney in a kilt' photograph, taken at the Middlewich Carnival 1973. Richard was one of the founders of the Middlewich Folk & Boat festival in June 1990.

If you look closely, you can see that Mr Devaney is also sporting some quaint kind of headgear, but we must stress that the sunflower is not part of it.

Mr Devaney does not wear giant sunflowers on his head (though we wouldn't put it past him).

Facebook Feedback:

Liz Mcguinness Haha!! Love it!

Geraldine Williams Was his headgear the prototype for Princess Beatrice's hat....??!!

Ian Murfitt A truly magnificent specimen.

Liz Mcguinness Yes it'll keep the kids away from the fire Dave!!

Angela Appleton I remember babysitting for Richard Devaney when I was about 15, sure he had twins. They had a Jack Russell dog and everytime I moved it growled at me. The babies were crying and I didn't dare get up.

First published 13th May 2018
Re-formatted and re-published 16th April 2020

KINDERTON FOLK circa 1975

by Dave Roberts

Long long ago, before the days of The Middlewich Paddies, this merry band of minstrels was flying the flag for folk music in Middlewich.

Three of the Kinderton Folk are instantly recognisable; on the right, in descending order are Graham Sivills, Michael 'Trampas' Woodbine, and the unmistakable Richard Devaney.

But who are the others?

No doubt someone will be able to supply the missing names.

Kinderton Folk was formed in the mid 70s and played folk club style gigs in the upstairs room at the Boar's Head among other venues.

The idea for a folk group really started with the Dane Rugby Club when Mike Hough, hearing Richard sing some bawdy rugby songs, suggested that his voice was good enough to sing something a little more - shall we say - respectable? and Kinderton Folk was the result.

Graham, Michael and Richard later got together to form the redoubtable Middlewich Paddies with the addition of Dave Thompson on guitar.

The formation of the Paddies and the idea for the Folk & Boat Festival (inspired by the Newcastleton Traditional Music Festival)  led to Middlewich gaining a good reputation among folk music fans and it was this that led eventually to the town's thriving festival and music scene today.

Editor's note: When this diary entry was first published in 2013 we erroneously dated the photo as 1980. Dave Thompson has pointed out that, as shown in the Middlewich Paddies logo (below), this date is obviously wrong, as 1980 was the year that the Paddies were founded. We've speculatively changed the date for Kinderton Folk to 'circa 1975'. If anyone knows the exact date for KF, please let us know. Thanks to Dave T for pointing this out.

There's more on the Middlewich Paddies, including some music clips, on Graham Sivill's website (which itself goes back a few years):

GRAHAM'S WEBSITE

UPDATE (19th June 2018):

Graham Sivills writes:

Ha ha. OK - I might have got their surnames a bit wrong but let's go with Roger Thornton guitar. Jean Crooke and Pat Hannigan or Haddican on Banjo. Michael Trampas Woodbine on Whistle and Harmonica
First published 24th July 2013 as 'Kinderton Folk 1980'
Amended, reformatted and re-published 19th June  and 20th July 2018