Ladies Step Up To Tea

I've very much enjoyed learning this slip jig. It seems to have a connection with Abbeylara in Co. Longford in Ireland, appearing in manuscript tunesbooks made by Stephen Grier c. 1883 and Larry Smyth in the late C19th/early C20th.
Taking of tunebooks, a few years ago I unwittingly bought three manuscripts, which came in a mixed auction lot along with some broken woodwind instruments and a wrecked fiddle. I didn't view the auction, didn't know exactly what I was bidding on; but when I collected the items it turned out that the tunebooks were some from Shropshire that were thought to be lost (plenty of the tunes were in circulation in local sessions thanks to some photocopies and the work of Neil Brookes and Tony Weatherall in transcribing them). It also turned out that the fiddle was the right sort of date to have belonged to Richard Hughes the original compiler of one of the tunebooks and just might have been the instrument he played. We'll never know for sure. As you can see from the auction photo at the end of the video it was in a terrible state. Thanks to the generosity of my long suffering other half, Andrew Norman, and the restoration skills and profound patience of Julian Batey, it lives again!
Multi tracked fiddle and a little harmony on a Tim Cranmore transitional recorder.

[@petercowell2051]

It lives again indeed. A good tune and a very good auction purchase.

[@MoiraBracknall]

It's quite the minor miracle it's back in one piece and the whole story of the tunebooks and instruments is full of unlikely coincidences and unfeasibly good luck...

[@petercowell2051]

@@MoiraBracknall Very nice repair work. Sometimes I wonder about coincidences. What were the woodwinds?

[@MoiraBracknall]

@@petercowell2051 There was a wooden penny whistle, a couple of what they call band flutes and what had been quite a good Simpson flute, very broken.