It is my very sad task to inform
you that Kerry was killed yesterday in a road traffic collision (RTC) on the
A20 in Kent opposite Folkestone Race Course. It appears that his car was
hit by a foreign registered truck being driven on the wrong side of the road.
It would appear that the driver of the truck has been arrested and may face
charges of Causing Death by Dangerous Driving. Just as that may be, if it
happens, it won't bring Kerry back!
I must apologise if you get two,
or more copies of this e-mail but I would rather that should happen than that
anyone in the "Folk World" who would wish to be informed should
be left out. Some of you will have heard already from Chris Roche and Graeme
Knights who e-mailed or phoned with the outline details but I wanted to add a
little more detail of what happened, to dispel rumours, and that I have done
above. I also wish to give you a brief r?sum? of Kerry's, and
Mandy's, advancement in the folk world to remind you just what we have
lost. I say Kerry and Mandy because, as Chris Roche pointed out, they are
always spoken of as a couple both in life and singing.
Both of them first sang in public
at the 2002 Christmas party of the "White Hart Folk Club" in Hythe,
Kerry said he only sang to support Mandy as she was nervous of singing on her
own! We instantly recognised their singing potential and asked them to
join our club shanty crew, " The White Hart Shanty Crew" (WHSC),
which was run by the late Alan Sugden and me. They only got to sing in
public once, at Crabble Mill, with the full crew in February 2003 (two photos
attached) before Alan died suddenly in May of that year so their next
public outing was in June singing "The Farewell Shanty" at Alan's
funeral!! They both said that whenever they sang it again after that they
always thought of Alan.
In 2004 we decided to bring
"The White Hart Shanty Crew" to a close and I joined "The Shanty
Crew" (TSC) but at one of my earliest Cutty Sark sessions with TSC
we were light on the ground so Kerry & Mandy and my wife, Dannie, came up
to do some sets as the White Hart Shanty Crew again to support
us. In 2005 we all went up to the "Lancaster Maritime
Festival" and decided to end WHSC with a "swan song" in the
singarounds there. It was at this time that Kerry & Mandy (K&M)
met Paul and Linda Sirman and they became firm friends.
On the 5th November 2006 Kerry
and Mandy, came to join TSC again on "The Cutty Sark" for her
decommissioning before the re-fit. We alternated sets until we sang the
visitors off the ship. The very last song was sung by Kerry, "The
Grey Goose Shanty" with a little bit of help from his friends. I
have attached a photo of Kerry & Mandy during one of their earlier sets in
the "'tween decks".
Paul mentored them a great deal
after they met at Lancaster and they did a short set in the Library
of the Royal Kings' Arms Hotel. From that point they have not looked back
setting up their own folk club at St Mary in the Marsh and running a couple of
festivals there, from 2007 they were regular performers at the Glasson Dock
Festival which succeeded Lancaster until it closed down. Since then they
have established themselves at other festivals and sang with Paul and on their
own at the first two "Ellesmere Port Maritime Festivals" They
formed "Quidnunc" with Stuart Pendrill relatively recently and have
gained a lot of success with the folk rock style of "Quidnunc" who
have recently added a bass player and a drummer. Earlier this year they
were invited to sing in Germany.
Kerry has been a merchant seaman,
a fisherman and was for some years the mechanic on the Littlestone Inshore
Rescue Boat (IRB). He and Mandy did not therefore hesitate to join Paul,
Tom Kelly, Maureen Jones, Gillian Wren, Brian Withstandley and me for a
Shanties and Sea Song Concert at the Dungeness Lifeboat Station in 2011 which
we have repeated three times since, the latest being on 5th June this
year. Kerry & Mandy also organised the music for the Dungeness
Lifeboat Open Day for the last few years. On these occasions Kerry wore
his RNLI sweater with pride as he did on The Cutty Sark as you can see in the
photograph.
He would be the first to admit
that he had problems pitching when he first started singing but he always had a
good voice and he quickly gained accuracy with experience. He and Mandy
always sounded good together both in maritime and non maritime singing. I
will always remember Kerry for his singing of "Skipper Jan
Rebec", "Hanging Johnny", "Grey Goose Shanty" and The
Rochester Recruit". There are a lot of examples of them singing on
their own, with Stuart as "Quidnunc" and with the rest of us at
Dungeness on You Tube, do take the time to have a look.
I do hope to hear Mandy sing
again when she is ready but she and the "folk family" have lost a
fine singer and a bloody good bloke!! I am sure that you will all
join me in sending our deepest sympathy to Mandy, Mick and Brenda (his
parents), his children and grandchildren.