This is Haslemere met with Des and Tina O’Byrne who run the Grayshott Folk Club. We thoroughly enjoyed meeting them and could have chatted with them all day. In turn, we felt they could have talked forever about the special club they have created down the road. They were filled with pride and love for what they are doing in this little corner of Hampshire.

As with so many ventures, it has been a roller coaster ride to where they are nowadays but, with a small but growing core of dedicated “Grayshott Folksters” who attend virtually every gig, audience numbers are now big enough to make the Club sustainable.

Rewind to when Tina and Des first met at teacher training college in Lincoln, in 1982. Even then Des was signing up some good acts for gigs at the college (Wooly Trunks, Ragged Heroes, Christine Collister). If you like, those college gigs were the seed of an idea for what he created 28 years later, after a career in Teaching, when he put on his first gig in January 2011. In 2010, at a friend’s wedding in Petersfield, he heard Folk/Rock band Mary Jane performing and he signed them up as the very first act to perform at Grayshott Folk Club. The first two years were financed by Des and the idea was to generate an income as a pension top-up to supplement his one-to-one teaching. However, the first two years were tough and loss making and their accountant did question the folly and the finances of the venture.

However, in January 2012, Des booked The Bully Wee Band and a goodly number of gig-goers turned up at Grayshott Village Hall to see them. Then folk-rock band The Acoustic Strawbs came to Grayshott and performed to an even bigger crowd and these two gigs were a turning point for the folk club.

Des has gradually phased out his teaching and he is now solely focused on his folk club. It feels like he has found the right formula. Family friends greet you as you arrive at a gig and usuallyrecognise you from a previous event. Most of the folk gigs are held at Grayshott Village Hall where Des and Tina have managed to create an intimate venue. Tina runs the bar and her team serves local beers, tea and snacks. They keep their bar prices low and the service is always warm and friendly. Des comperes with an infectious enthusiasm. If you are lucky enough to attend a gig, you’ll receive an updated Newsletter the next day and that enthusiasm carries over into your inbox.

We were wondering how you measure the success of a folk club like this. The most obvious way is by ticket sales and Des tells us with pride that he is blown away when he sees a sell-out audience. Tina says she just loves that people are moved to tears by a song they’ve just heard live. Des knows he is doing something special when, at the end of every gig, a regular “Folkster” always seeks him out, punches him on the arm and gleefully says, “you’ve gone and done it again.”

The next gig at Grayshott Folk Club will be Honey & The Bear with friends as part of Haslemere Festival. 

Check out the folk club website here.