In An English Country Garden (Peacocks' Photoshoot with Bhas Allan)

  https://www.tiktok.com/@peacocktale/video/7511661056788303126 for Bhas's film of the performance

“I tried to save The Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.” (Frodo in LOTR) Tolkien wrote that during World War Two (and with his own front line memories of friends lost in World War One) and it probably sums up how many survivors felt; as well as summing up the plight of those who didn't survive. Recording this in an English country garden in Lancelot's own Norfolk parish - the bee loud glades, the tidal wave of birdsong - it really did feel like this was what Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Wiliamson fought 5 years, aged 19-25, to save. What he HAD helped to save in July 1945, on home leave from a year in the Burma campaign (after 4 years in the skies above Europe winning two mentions in despatches and not getting shot down, winning those existential battles) But not, alas, for him. A fatal training flight on the early morning of Friday 13 July above Little Eaton in Derbyshire meant he never got the chance to enjoy the 'Shire' we are sitting in here. This is our thank you. We'll be playing this homage (with our neighbour and musical friend harpist Vanessa Wood-Davies on harp) at the church in which Percy is buried on his 80th anniversary, Sunday July 13 2025 as part of a special memorial service starting at 9.30 am. Three generations of his family will be present. I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter, 5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames, In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise And came down to Earth but lived up to my names. Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin, Six Logres ladies to walk by my side, Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July. Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only, Play up the dead march as we go along And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy, I lived in the free air that breathes through this song. Instrumental break Repeat first verse. Lyric © Gareth Calway 2023

Brave Unselfish Loving (VE Remembrance)

https://soundcloud.com/gareth-calway/1aafa1f7-32e8-40a7-9cf3-b8f93b0c5e51

A new recording for the 80th anniversary of VE Day of this remembrance anthem for a "brave, loving and unselfish" youth late of this parish.

Flight Sergeant Pilot Lancelot Percival Williamson, 1920-1945, died on Friday July 13 1945 after five years service in the RAF fighting Fascism on two major fronts of the Second World War, aged 25. He joined the RAF in 1939, aged 19. He was agonisingly close to surviving the entire war when he died in a plane crash on a solo training flight above Little Eaton in Derbyshire just after his last home leave in Norfolk.

Lancelot 'Percy' Williamson is the last name on the unbelievably long roll call of Sedgeford war dead from two world wars called out (across the village green where we live) every Remembrance Sunday. My ear was struck by the Arthurian resonances, not just Sir Lancelot the greatest knight but Percival the purest (and finder of the Holy Grail). Maz and I have the honour in absentia familias of tending his grave at Fring and also of occasionally remembering him at the church with this song or the poem.

He hailed from Eaton Farm Sedgeford, North West Norfolk. went to school in Fring, sang in Heacham church choir, played cricket for Sedgeford a week before his death and is buried next to the small grave of his 'older' (10 year old) brother at Fring All Saints.

The tune is a traditional folk song about a good young man cut down in his prime. The aircraft you hear at the end of this film was flying over as we finished recording so we left the mikes open. The same thing happened when I was recording the poem in the graveyard.

I landed a crocked plane, when still just a fitter,

5 years derring-done, never shot down in flames,

In a cloud of unknowing, I flew for the sunrise

And came down to Earth but lived up to my names.

Six knights of Logres to carry my coffin,

Six Logres ladies to walk by my side,

Through hellfire and slaughter to a wheatfield of poppies

And a home hedge on Friday the 13th of July.

Beat the drum slowly and play the pipes only,

Play up the dead march as we go along

And bring me to Fring All Saints and lay me down easy,

I lived in the free air that breathes through this song.

Instrumental break

Repeat first verse.

Lyric © Gareth Calway 2023

from PEACOCK'S TALES (The Sapphire Wedding Album) peacocks-tale.bandcamp.com/album/peaco…dding-album
Percy's gravestone has recently been cleaned and made much more legible, as you will see in the final frame of the film (see link below). Our thanks to Carol Townsend of the Commonwealth Graves Commission who carried out that excellent work as well as to Tim Snelling Sedgeford village historian whose diligent research gave us many of the images and press cuttings you see on the film and which gave us the material for our song. You can also watch the music video on YouTube. youtu.be/j3LRhwEYIsA That film gives you a bit of the poem as well.