A 60s folk band helped me find my place in Britain

I was 15, awkward and unsure, feeling perpetually in-between: half-white, half-black; half-British, half-Caribbean. One night in 2008 my dad took me to see Pentangle at the Royal Festival Hall on London’s South Bank. I must have stood out in the crowd, but when I stepped out of that concert later that summer’s evening I was changed for ever.

The old folk songs they performed felt haunting and ancient, yet strangely comforting. Their version of The Cuckoo, an 18th-century ballad, moved me deeply; I downloaded it as soon as I got home and found the music transported me to an enchanted British past. That performance became my initiation into British folk culture and set off an obsession with standing stones, myths, druids, pagans and seasonal customs practised in remote parts of the country.

I learned about wassailing, morris dancing and mummers’ plays, about the Welsh Mari Lwyd and Highland folklore.

Britain, London

pentangle, london, south bank, british folk, the cuckoo, standing stones, druids, wassailing, morris dancing, mummers plays