LGSF Farewell Reunion Dinner Saturday 27th January 2024

Last night will live with me forever. To be present at the last ever London Gang Show Fellowship Reunion and Dinner was very special. The curtain came down on the Farewell London Gang Show in 1974 and every year since members of the London Gang Show and others have gathered to remember the times spent together and to celebrate the man who started it, Ralph Reader CBE. I’ve been lucky to have been coming along, on and off, since I was 21, to represent Edinburgh Gang Show.

To hear Gang Show memories from David Catt-Camfield , Michael Hoffman, Brenda Pow and then Bob Corp-Reader OBE was beautiful and inspiring. What times they all had as part of the original Gang.

‘A Wee Treat’, a short cabaret item devised by Andy Johnston and Ian Murray Redpath Sutherland , was just sublime. Paying tribute to Ralph and Gang Shows in our uniquely Edinburgh style we sang through some of Ralph’s greatest hits of the past 92 years, with a few jokes thrown in. Personally, I was absolutely thrilled and honoured to introduce the last song and sing the opening lines of a newly discovered to Edinburgh Gang Show song by Ralph Reader called ‘May The Sun Shine For You.’

And then to join the legendary Peter Straker in singing ‘Man Was Born To Be Free’ was another moment in life never to be forgotten. Ralph wrote ‘Freedom ‘ for Peter in 1966 and for us to back him was just incredible.

And so, the curtain must fall on the Dinner… in this format. “We’ll keep alight the flame. Glowing through every new scene. We’ll keep the Gang Show name bright as it ever has been.”

Scott Walker