Clive Bennett & Cherie Davies

Cherie [nee Hayes] was born in Craven Arms, Shropshire in 1942 but grew up in Dolgellau, Merionethshire where she attended Dr. Williams' School for Girls and the local Technical College. After living for a number of years in and around Chester where she worked as a secretary at various times for Cheshire County Council, Sir Alfred McAlpine - Civil Engineers and two solicitors, she became secretary / personal assistant to the MD of Dixon Bates [Light Engineers]. In 1987 she moved to Sussex where she worked for 12 years as secretary to the Senior Partner at the Brighton office of Wynne Baxter Godfree and Selwood Leathes Hooper, one of the areas largest solicitors, after which she changed departments working on clinical negligence and personal injury claims. Early in 2000 she left Wynne Baxter's offices to take up a secretarial post at Premier Medical, a specialist company producing medico-legal reports for solicitors. When, in 2003, that company decided to re-locate the work to Ludlow in Shropshire, she joined the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton as a medical secretary in the Cellular Pathology Department.
She has a daughter 'Tracie' and granddaughter 'Stephanie' living in Plympton, Devon and her hobbies include travel, reading, hand-crafts, music - both classical and pop - and cat shows.

Clive was born in 1934 in Barley, a small village in north Hertfordshire - mentioned in The Domesday Book - set on a hillside at the edge of the East Anglian Heights, and moved to Sussex in 1952 A keen footballer in his younger days, he made his debut in senior football in 1949 at the age of 14 playing in a league match for the village team, having been captain of the boys side for the previous two years. When not playing he was an avid supporter of Tottenham Hotspur but has now, for many years, been a season ticket holder at Brighton and Hove Albion. He attended Letchworth Grammar School in the late 1940's followed by Cambridge Art School. Moving to Sussex in the early 50's, he spent two years National Service in the Royal Air Force stationed in the Suez Canal zone of Egypt. During the skiffle era of the late 50's and early 60's he became interested in folk music and was co-founder of Brighton's first Ballads and Blues Club in 1961 and similar clubs in Worthing 1962 and Shoreham by Sea in 1963 During the mid 60's whilst working in Kent he founded Folkestone's first folk song club and then the acclaimed Pilgrims Way Folk Club in Canterbury. After returning to Sussex in 1967 he was involved with running a number of folk song clubs in Worthing, Brighton, Eastbourne [Merrie England] and more recently Seaford [The Wellington]. In 1965 he was a founder member of the British Federation of Folk Clubs and served on its National Executive for 10 years including Vice Chair 1967-70 and Chairperson 1971-75 He served on the English Folk Dance and Song Society's National Executive from 1973 to 1979 and on both Sussex [1963/4 and 1969/73] and Kent [1965/6] District Committees of the Society. From 1966 until 1969 he was the first Song Director at Broadstairs Folk Show, returning in the same capacity to the Broadstairs Folk Festival for two years in 1976 and 77 In 1974 he was a founder member of the Merrie England Mummers and has been bagman to the group for the past 33 years.

Virtually all of his working life was spent with the South Eastern Electricity Board and much of that time as a Procurement and Contracts Officer. In 1977 he was admitted to the now Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply [MCIPS] and in 1992 gained a Bachelor of Arts Degree [BA] in Social Science from the Open University. An active trade unionist he spent many years as a NALGO, and its successor UNISON, Branch Officer and was the South Eastern Electricity Branch Chairperson from 1985 until his retirement in 1993 and Branch President from 1994 until 2007
Hobbies, in addition to folk song and ritual drama, include philately, photography, travel, cat shows and sport where, after two years as Captain, he is now Secretary of his local lawn bowling club in addition to being both President and Secretary of the Brighton, Hove and District Bowling League and Controller of Sussex County Bowling Association Division 3 Vice Presidents. In May 2008 he made his County debut, playing for Sussex against Surrey.
See: www.hangletonbowls.fsnet.co.uk and http://freespace.virgin.net/league.bhdbowls
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Hangleton Bowling Club:
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Albert Mockford Tyro Championship [ Winner ] 2003, Gosling Memorial 'Fixed Jack' Cup [ Winner ] 2004 and Club Captain 2004, 2005

[1] . . [2] . . . [3] ..

[1] Viv Hibberd '2 wood' Cup [ Winner ] and [2] J S Colvin '100 Up' Cup [ Winner ] - both 2005.

[3] Cyril Buckland ‘Pairs Championship’ Cup [Winner] 2006

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In March 2000 "HAT RECORDS" released "The Roving Journeyman" : HAT CD 021 featuring Clive singing and talking about 24 of his favourite traditional folk songs [ further details on contents and availability on either: www.seaford4folk.fsnet.co.uk OR http://www.hatmusic.co.uk ] then, in 2002, Country Books published "Sussex Folk" a book written by Clive covering the evolution of folk song clubs in and around Brighton, Worthing, Eastbourne and Lewes from 1961 to 2001 with a foreword by the acclaimed folk singer Shirley Collins and over 200 illustartions.

Follow Links at top of the page for further details.