FolkMog – A Mobile Local

A thought occurred to me this morning. I was thinking about the concept of ‘a local’. For those of you that might not understand this concept, it used to be the nearest pub to your home (hence the name ‘local’) where your were well known and where you knew others that frequented said pub. Now this beast seems to have all but disappeared in our modern high speed world where most pubs seem to be little more than restaurants and the clientele is often so transient that getting to know anyone is difficult.

So here I was without a local and yet feeling that I had just spent an evening in one. I suddenly realised that FolkMog encompasses much of that which was once a local. I admit that it misses that fundamental item, that is, it is nearly always the nearest pub; but thinking about it more deeply shows us some remarkable similarities.

A FolkMog noggin takes place in a pub, so far so good. The people you meet there will be pleased to see you and chances are that you will know at least one person, usually more and because of this you feel perfectly happy turning up alone. If you do turn up alone there will be several people who notice and ask after your other half. The other thing about a FolkMog noggin, well any event actually is that on the one occasion that you are new you will be welcomed and you will never be the strangers again.

All of this brings me to the latest FolkMog noggin, held at the Old Mill in Saxted Green. I reached the pub after an easy cross country drive that took me approximately forty five minutes. The only worrying moment was when I was driving into Framlingham as I spotted a Morgan going in the opposite direction. (I guess there are some Morgan owners not part of their local centres but I can’t imagine why). Finding the pub was easy although I am not sure where Saxted Green itself is. I imagine it is one of these villages without a recognisable centre. The normal hiatus happened in the car park. This is an odd thing. I have never arrived at an event first but this is what I think happens. You arrive, park and start to do whatever it is that you do before leaving your mog and then someone else arrives. They will park near you and start doing the same but now with you talking to them because they are old friends or even if you have never seen them before, well they have a Morgan, so what’s the difference. So the conversation goes on and another mog arrives, and another and so on so, it seems, the pub is not entered until all or at least most members have arrived.

Once inside we found it to be a nice pub but I suspect there would not have been many people in had we not been making it our local that night. We bought drinks and chatted for a while before retiring to the restaurant for some grub. I had the carvery and a jolly nice piece of beef it was to. I was sitting with David and Heather Kennett, and Ian Charity and what a lovely relaxed evening it was, we even talked about Morgans for a while. Also in attendance were Marion and Roy May, Ann and Alan Wimhurst, Nick Bache, Mike and Val Abbott, Roger and Linda Coverly and, of course Maurice and Eileen Cook. A special welcome goes to Jeremy and Karen Eyres, new members, who are waiting for a new 4/4 in the New Year.

Another happy evening. Thanks to Maurice Cook for the photographs. The next events are the visit to the Archants print works on the 6th of June and a visit to Dunwich on the 17th. I hope to see you all there.