The new millennium, 2000, brought about a rebirth of the National Harmonica League (NHL/HarmonicaUK). John Walton and then Colin Mort had created and kept the now independent NHL running since 1981, but at a cost to themselves. The membership of about 300 was not growing, and many of the members who had helped to run and inspire it had stood down or died. The friction between John and Colin and their respective organisations, the IHO and the NHL, was not helping. The successful International Millennium Festival in Bournemouth run by John Walton marked the end of the IHO and Colin asked me to take over as Chairman of the NHL. Apparently, my experience developing ice cream made up for my inability to play the harmonica. Larry Adler died in 2001 and Paul Jones agreed to take over as President. Times had changed, and I was familiar with the Part 8, The Final Part (then) new world of the internet, and I had 2000-Present already started integrating our activities into a website packed with information about what we did, plus educational resources Roger Trobridge and forums to bring the membership together. The improved HarmonicaUK communication by Skype and email also meant that meetings Patron no longer had to be held face to face, and documents could be shared instantly rather than sent by post. Another effect was that the committee could now function with members based at home. Administration costs almost disappeared. Other things had changed. The older members had been mainly chromatic players, but younger diatonic blues players were getting involved. I am a researcher at heart, and it was apparent that there was no archive of what had been achieved so I set about collecting what I could from previous Chairmen (John Tyler, John Walton, and Colin Mort) as well as Steve Proctor (Sutherland Trading) who was part of Hohner at that time, and collectors like John Bryan and Brian Holland. These showed that the tremolo and traditional music were not really represented in the NHL. A meeting with Ernie Gordon was instrumental in remedying this. In 2001, I attended the SPAH Convention in Denver and the World Harmonica Festival (WHF/Hohner) in Trossingen, Germany. Both of them lasted for four 1 0 days and showed the value of “total 0 2 en Trossing immersion” festivals. We needed to find a way to do the same, and we were very fortunate that Ben Hewlett was teaching at the Folk House, in Bristol. In 2001 we convinced them to hire out the whole building to us from Friday night to Sunday afternoon Bristol Folk House and we established a long running,
THE HISTORY OF HARMONICAUK
Summer 2022 • Harmonica.uk
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