THE NARRATOR
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 Jane is passionate about poetry, song and dance. Caller with the Sussex based ceilidh band The Catsfield Steamers, Jane has just published ‘Why Dance?’ a traditional dance resource pack, a complete tool kit for teachers and callers, and it’s selling well. She claims to have written one poem she is pleased with, ‘Snowdrop’, and reads poetry aloud....... the only way. Jane sings once a week with ‘The Stag Band’, and, reading and singing with elderly folk at a local residential home in Hastings, she is known there as ‘Poetry Jane’.
Singing from a very early age with her musical family Jane Downes was resident at The Lamb Folk Club, Eastbourne in the 70s, forming a duo with Will Downes (melodeon) to appear at the Broadstairs Folk Festival in ’76, and briefly, as Lothlorien, with Will, Kelvin Message and Dave Goodstone, also of the Lamb....... losing in the local heats of the Melody Maker Rock/Folk Contest to skaa band Staa Marx! Using traditional dance since she first started teaching Jane found an outlet for those talents, becoming caller for the Steamers, which, as it moved from Mad Jack’s Morris session musicians around 1977, evolved into the well loved and highly successful local band it now is...... fundamentally, fun. Jane and colleague Pat King have recently released a traditional and cultural dance resource pack, ‘Why Dance?’, handbook and two CDs selling well at home and abroad especially to schools..... keeping the tradition alive. As Jane majored in English and Drama she’s delighted to be narrator for Rosie Blakeley’s poems. Using poetry as a tool for teaching reading, admiring Andrew Motion’s huge contribution to on-line poetry, reading poetry to the elderly....... Jane loves these poems, and CoM.
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