Yesterday, I shared my ragged performance of “When I’m Cleaning Windows” at the George Formby Society convention in Blackpool, and promised that as a reward for enduring it, you’d get to see how the banjo uke is really meant to be played. And so here are eight performers I managed to record before the battery on my Flip camera decided it had done quite enough.

There were multiple concert sessions throughout the weekend, and these performances were all from the first on Saturday.

John Walley started us off in the ballroom of the Imperial Hotel with “Sitting on the Top of Blackpool Tower” and “Mr. Wu’s An Air Raid Warden Now.”

Next, Anthony Lister performed “Granddad’s Flannelette Nightshirt” and “You Can’t Keep a Growing Lad Down.”

Dave Barnes followed with “Like the Big Pots Do,” the George Formby song I’m most anxious to learn next. Dave, along with Mike O’Dwyer, spent an hour Friday night teaching me the chord changes, so who knows? I might get up on the big stage one day and perform it myself … if I can get the hang of the solo, that is!

Simon Cunliffe performed “I Blew A Little Blast On My Whistle” and “When The Lads Of The Village Get Crackin.'” and managed not to get flustered by a busted string.

Derek Herbert sang “Chinese Laundry Blues” and “I’m the Husband of the Wife of Mr. Wu.”

Fred Martindale performed “I’m Saving Up for Sally.”

Janice Escourt performed “I Remember George” and got us to sing along on “Bless ‘Em All.”

Dez Barry sang “You Don’t Need a License for That” and “I Wish I Was Back on the Farm.”

Here’s Remco Houtman-Janssen with a tradition Hawaiian song plus “I Surrender, Dear.”

Now here’s Remco with “Mr. Sandman.”

And here Remco is again with “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” Why is his performance broken into three parts? Because I kept shutting my camera when I thought he was done, but he kept getting called back for encores!

Kinda makes you want to get to Blackpool, doesn’t it?

And now that I see the November gathering of the Society in Blackpool is one week after the World Fantasy Convention in Brighton, wheels are turning in my head to figure out whether it’s possible to remain in the UK for the time between.

Probably impossible, but as the George Formby song goes—”You Can’t Stop Me From Dreaming.”