Music in the Museum: The Killick Stone Concert
This half term, on Wednesday 1st June, music will be returning to Bridport Museum. David Powell and Katy Woodrow will fill the Museum with local music about the local area. Come along for free at 11.30am and listen to the music that David honed during his years teaching at Burton Bradstock School.
David Powell was appointed to the headship of Burton Bradstock School in 1990. To introduce himself in his first assembly David played a 1900 melodeon and told the children the story of how it had started life in the forests, fields and steel mills of Germany in the 1890’s before German craftsmen shaped the raw materials into an instrument and sold it in a music shop in Cologne.
He told them of Archie Gilbert, the young English soldier who bought the melodeon back from the 1st World War and how David married Archie’s grand-daughter, Barbara. He explained how her mother had told David about an old melodeon gathering dust in her attic. The children watched and listened as David breathed life into the old instrument.
As he played to the children, born almost 100 years after the melodeon, he watched their eyes light up as they connected with history he vowed to ensure that all learning would, as much as possible, be experiential. He passionately wanted to allow them to draw from the past in order to make sense of the present and prepare them for a future yet to be written.
Burton Bradstock is a village that grew strong on the traditional industries of farming, fishing and flax spinning, flax that was woven into rope and nets, nets that were used by local fishermen to provide funds to support the household.
David allowed children to explore this history through school log books and records that shone spotlights on the lives of Victorian children who had attended the school. He also created songs from a book of poems by local poet Douglas Northover, who wrote of the village and valley that he loved so much. Douglas died in 1991 in Burton Bradstock. At the end of his poem ‘Chesil Song’ he wrote;
‘Let me drop Killick, here let me stay
Until the sun sets at the end of my day’.
Local fishermen used the resources available in their surroundings to make anchors – anchors that work to keep them safe and secure while they spend their time focusing on the work at hand. A killick anchor uses a rock in a wooden or rope frame to create an anchor that is free, simple to create, easy to repair and produces effective results. Killick anchors, made by wives and daughters protected generations of Burton sailors.
David’s free concert at the Museum uses song to celebrate the rich history of the village and valley of the River Bride. He is joined by ex-pupil, Katy Woodrow on voice and flute.
