‘The Musickers’

In a lecture at Lewes on ‘Sussex Music in thePast’ the Rev. KH MacDermott said that at the Restoration in 1660 the parsons found themselves without any means of accompanying the singing. Thus the village bands grew up, and the gallery at the west end of the church was exclusively set apart for ‘the musickers’. At Cuckfield there was a volume called ‘the Cuckfield Book’, giving minute details of the places where to sit and the reasons for that selection. These ‘musickers’ were enthusiastic, and it was a family tradition to be a ‘musicker’.

Origin of term 'Face the Music'?

A curious feature was that as soon is the choir and instrumentalists struck up the congregation turned round and ‘faced the music’.

Mid Sussex Times, 28 December 1926.

Also see another Cuckfield Connections article: 1610: Daring Robert's fatal fall

PS musicker is a Scrabble valid word!

Contributed by Malcolm Davison.

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