
Wentbridge House Hotel
13th December, 2024.

Happy Together
On a murky and dank December morning the Wakeylele band made their way along country lanes to the impressive hotel and grounds of Wentbridge House ignoring the no through route signs as they were on a mission to entertain the staff and volunteers of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance charity as they gathered for their annual dinner.
Santa hats or similar were the order of the day along with seasonal jumpers – indeed Stan revealed that his jumper was made by his by his wife using a knitting machine and it still looked good some decades later. On the hat front, I would judge Maria’s Christmas cake design some way ahead of Chris’s turkey on the aesthetic front.
When we were all ready and the first guests trickled through to the plush dining room, Jane snapped our band for a fine team photo although I must say the carpet design keeps reminding me of an artexed ceiling which takes the gloss off the final product so to speak.

So, the first chords of what is scheduled to be a triple- header of performances in eight days were struck and we were off with a mixed set of seasonal songs and tried and tested numbers from our still growing catalogue. The first Christmas song was titled … Christmas Song and was performed with enough aplomb to call it a success from where I was sitting at least. However, there was a bit of a blip at the beginning of Come Up and See Me when – mentioning no names – LINDA confessed to Thelma and myself, (sitting either side of her) about regularly forgetting the count leading to the opening lines of the song and asking us to remind her next time. As a result, I’ve added rubber spurs to my Christmas list so that we can tap her ankles after the downstroke on the G. The silly season then continued with David introducing a singing cactus as a prelude to the band’s version of Feliz Navidad – I’m surprised it wasn’t in the running for a Christmas number 1 hit! More tomfoolery soon followed with what is fast becoming the biggest talking point amongst the band this month following David’s unusual request asking if any of us happened to have an inflatable hippo at home. Although Maria has since kindly donated a soft toy hippo,

i want a hippopotamus for Chtistmas
which made a brief appearance on David’s music stand, it hasn’t prevented alleged conversations amongst the three Mike’s discussing the attractions of buying the inflatable version. However, I’ve also heard that each of their wives have put a stop to this on the basis that there wouldn’t have been any room left for them when they stay in their caravans. Whatever the truth of the matter the song itself was duly performed without a hitch and the stream of festive favourites continued almost unhindered, attracting individuals from the dining room to take video ‘shorts’ on their phones with an enthusiastic couple also taking to the ‘dance’ carpet. Also to showcase our regular catalogue whilst offering a brief respite from the jolly Christmas fare, the band confidently tackled the rhythmic Love Hurts and the very appropriate On the Road Again which also attracted some videoers and brought to mind an earlier remark of David’s referring to a quote by Groucho Marx about a return to sanity. “You can’t fool me. There ain’t no Sanity Claus” (I googled it.) Incidentally I think it is more than a coincidence that at same time as we were in full swing Richard was passing over the A1 viaduct a very short distance from Wentbridge House on his own daily mission so he was in fact at the back of our eye candy on the back row! Finally, the Christmas hits were coming to an end with Santa Claus Coming to Town after all and it only remained to finish with, We Wish You a Merry Christmas with a prolonged burst on the G chord in expectation of raucous applause and shouts of ‘More’ from the assembled diners. Well, actually there was none forthcoming but nevertheless I sensed a warm glow of appreciation drifting our way and certainly there were plenty of pleasing expressions on people’s faces each time they passed through.

It only remained to pack away our equipment together with more of the complimentary teddy bears and steel ourselves for the second leg of our triple – bill events where no doubt there will be plenty of shaking and rattling to look forward to.

Thanks as always to another command performance from David aided by his singing cactus, to Mike H for his consistent work in arranging these very enjoyable YAA events, to Jane for the proficient videoing (she occasionally reads these so I thought I had better think of a flattering word) and to Joe for doing a great job in editing the material.
