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It is interesting to hear in these early tapes that the musicians often found it difficult to recall the tunes for older dances as they were no longer danced at the 50-50 and 60-40 dances popular then (these programs, which started in the 1920s, alternated old-tune dances with the foxtrot and other new dances fashionable then. Later on in many 50-50 programs, a foxtrot bracket, which consisted, of foxtrot-quickstep-foxtrot, followed each old-time dance). I also noticed those hesitations about certain tunes myself during the interviews that followed on from these earliest ones. Also certain band members would be mentioned as being knowledgeable about particular tunes. This can be heard on one tape where, in response to an enquiry about the Varsoviana, Con said that Mrs Everard and Jim Harrison knew those tunes best.
I do remember the collecting trip in the summer holidays following Christmas, 1962 and it was this visit that actually led on to the first Nariel festival. I still have some of the notes I made then, and it was reported by Maryjean Officer in the newsletter published jointly by the Folk Lore Society and the Victorian Bush Music Club, the Gumsuckers Gazette (Gumsuckers was an early colloquial name for Victorians). I probably had more reason to remember it because of the somewhat adventurous time I had getting to the New Year's Eve dance on December 31st, 1962.
Most of us involved in these early collecting trips were members of both these organisations, and I had been invited to go with Maryjean and the O'Connors to find out about the dancing while they recorded the music. They had a previous commitment to be in Yackandandah on New Years Eve so the plan was for me to go straight to Corryong, in time to see the dancers in action at the dance that night.
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