Julie Wassmer talks to singer-songwriter Ginger Bennett about her return to this year’s Canterbury Festival with conversation, laughter and songs from her new EP.
Two years ago, Ginger Bennett performed Songs from my Soul, a mesmerising sell-out theatre event at Canterbury Festival charting the experiences of this Whitstable-based singer growing up with her mother as first and second-generation immigrants from Jamaica. The show featured beautifully crafted-songs by Bennett and her writing partner, Frances Knight, and was described as “a story of love, the different ways we show it, experience it, long for it and feel the absence of it…”
Last month, Ginger Bennett returned to the Canterbury Festival, with her GB Quintet, and I made sure I was there in a packed Westgate Hall for a performance of eighteen songs, including some from her upcoming new EP Chouette. And if you’re wondering… chouette, the French word for “owl”, is also used to describe something or someone as “cool’ – a perfect description of Ginger Bennett herself – a cool performer who intersperses her performances with commentary filled with warmth, humour and an “owl-like” wisdom.
Ginger has garnered many Kent fans since she moved to Whitstable in 2022 with her husband Jon, but not everyone knows how she left behind a successful career in sport to become Ginger Bennett – the musician. I talked to her about how she made this amazing transition and what else we have to look forward to from her.
Ginger, you’re an incredibly talented singer-songwriter, you’re also my Cromwell Road neighbour and a fellow exile from south London – a DFL – but one who’s now firmly established here. What brought you to Whitstable in the first place?
Friends. Up until ’92 I really didn’t know anything else but life in London, but Jon and I began visiting a good friend here and the town soon became a regular weekend bolt-hole.
And the attraction?
You could say Whitstable became the chance for a bit of rebirth, or reboot, because our lives up to that point had been governed not by music but sport. I represented England and Great Britain in rugby.
How did you get into that?
My sister Maxine introduced me to the women’s game when it really was a very new sport. I was 15 at the time and women who had played at university and graduated in the late ‘80s had started setting up clubs in their home towns. Bromley Women’s Rugby Club was one of those.
Did you know much about the game before that?
Nothing – but Maxine introduced me to the club when they were looking for new players and I happened to be a very fast runner. I began learning the game just as the first women’s league and cup were being formed and I eventually went on to represent England and Great Britain (7s) playing in some amazing countries and stadiums including the old Cardiff Arms Park and Twickenham.
That’s a great achievement. Why did you give it up?
I retired at 32 after failing to make selection for the ‘98 World Cup. It broke my heart as I was in the best shape of my life and was lucky enough to have a fantastic athletics coach in my corner, the great John Hillier (he coached Myrtle Augee and so many others) but it was not to be.
That must have been a huge disappointment for you?
It was – and I was sad about it for a such a long time but I still appreciate the gift the sport has given me and the wonderfully strong and passionate women who taught me a lot about community, tolerance and how to have the kind of stupid fun you only get in team sport. If you look up the ‘94 Women’s World Cup winners’ photo, I am missing. I ran straight to the Bromley Women’s camp who had travelled to Edinburgh in support but Maxine carried on and went on to captain England and gain a very well earned MBE for services to sport.
I learned to love the game as a spectator through watching her play. I am very proud to have been part of the growth of what really is a beautiful game and have tickets to the opening and closing matches of the Women’s World Cup 2025.
And it’s great that you’re still able to appreciate a sport that meant so much to you.
Yes, and life has gone full circle because I also work for the Rugby Players Association, an organisation that supports today’s professional rugby players. It seems kind of fitting that I should have landed here.
Fantastic footage: (click on image to watch)
So… moving to Whitstable became an opportunity for reinvention?
You could say that. I’d promised Jon that if I didn’t make the World Cup squad in ‘98 we would start our family. We knew it was time to move on and work out what life after rugby would look like but when we’d looked for a house in London it was always so depressing standing in identikit teeny-tiny ickle houses and realising that, once we bought a house, we would never have enough money to leave it. We both loved Whitstable at first bite and it seemed the obvious choice. If you can’t afford the slums of your youth you might as well be poor by the sea!
And did music already have a place in your life at that point? At your recent Canterbury event, you explained to the audience how your generation seems to have enjoyed far more than what’s available to young people today – a local youth club, for instance?
I consider myself really lucky because primary education in London in the ‘70s and early ‘80s ensured that various musical instruments were always being thrust at you. Every child was given a recorder, then a violin, and I progressed through various recorders to a crumhorn then cello and finally bass guitar. Lessons were free. Teachers ran after-school and lunch time clubs for sport and music. I played, ran, sang and danced my way through them all!
So, as a working class kid, your school was a great enabler?
I am number five of seven kids and my lone parent mother would never have been able to provide the sporting and cultural experiences that were embedded into the school curriculum at that time (much as she would have wanted to).
And your teachers?
I may not have appreciated it at the time but in hindsight I can see that my music teacher, Lyn Norwood, was doing her best to encourage me musically. She took me to see La Sylphide (and I am sure she must have paid) and while she told me that I was talented, I had those ‘sulky teens mental ear defenders’ on at the time and didn’t believe her. But she also told me how you could just rock up to the opera house as a child and they would sometimes let you stand at the back for free – so I did! Travel was cheap and galleries and parks were free, and whilst my poor mum worked to keep us all fed and shod, I took advantage of all that was on offer.
As a working class kid myself, growing up in the East End in the ‘60s, I can totally understand what you’re saying. I doubt if I’d ever gone on to university or to write books and TV drama if I hadn’t been gifted some wonderful teachers at a time of great social mobility, especially in the entertainment industry when working class actors like Terence Stamp and writers like John Osborne were not only being accepted but were dominating cinema and theatre.
Exactly. And although there was an awful lot wrong about my time in secondary education, the extra-curricular experiences on offer at the same time formed the basis of great life levellers. That ‘poor little black kid’ from Lewisham can now walk into any room and have a conversation with anyone because of them.
At some level Lyn’s encouragement must have stayed with me for when sport ended I went straight back to music. I was lucky to bear witness to the last gasps of the GLC and the ILEA and I carry the legacy of that cultural investment throughout my life; a drive to be active, an openness towards the arts and a love of music have stayed with me all my life.
And you totally succeeded in creating a fabulous new career for yourself in music. How did you launch yourself as Ginger Bennett, the singer-songwriter, in Whitstable?
When I moved to Kent, and with all the struggles of bringing up a young family, sport and the arts were the first places I turned to in terms of reinvention, of forging new connections and working through depression.
I knew everyone in London, or so it seemed, but after moving here I had to make friends, something I had never had to do, so I joined a lot of groups and went to a lot of parties. I’m not shy but it took a real effort. I went to an event at the Whitstable Youth Club and met local musician and DJ, Bear Hawkins, who was then singing with his band The Serendeputies and playing his original music. With a little ‘Dutch Courage’ I asked if he would be interested in me as a backing singer and that’s how it all started. Bear encouraged me to share scraps of poetry I had written over the years which I then re-purposed as lyrics for the first songs. I spent a very long time looking for a song-writing connection, eventually forming such a lovely partnership with my friend, jazz composer and pianist, Frances Knight.
And Frances collaborated and performed with you on Songs from my Soul as well as your more recent Canterbury Festival event; an intimate cabaret style performance with Matt Miles on flute, sax and bass clarinet; Alex Keen on upright bass; Jonathan Ward on drums, and Frances on piano. One of the numbers you performed was from your upcoming new EP, Chouette, a musical tribute to someone special – Mr Pink. From my own time living in south London, I know of Brenton Pink and his famous home at 62 Loampit Hill but can you explain about what he meant to you as a child growing up in Lewisham?
Mr Pink was an artist and musician who had come to Britain from Jamaica like so many others in of the Windrush generation to ‘help the Motherland’. My five-year old memories of ‘70s London were of a loud, smelly and dirty cityscape. Pavements and houses seemed to be covered with a greasy slime from the pollution all seemed rather grey but Mr Pink’s house was a glory. He was always painting and in ALL THE COLOURS so his house stood out in all its candy-caned fabulousness at the top of Loampit Hill in Lewisham.
I think I had fashioned him as a version of Oscar Wilde’s Selfish Giant (this, after he had his revelation and let all the kids in to play in his wonderful garden). Mr Pink used to sit on his doorstep and said ‘Hello!’ so cheerily every time we, as kids, passed. He seemed to know everybody. A documentary has since been made of him. A Portrait of Mr Pink:
Apart from the GB Quintet, you’re also busy performing regularly with your six-piece funk and soul outfit Project F. How did this band come about?
I answered an ad on Gumtree! Project F was started by the guitarist, Campbell Gourlay who was soon joined by Simon Treadwell (founder of the long running Margate Jazz Jam) and I was brought in as the backing vocalist. Before the first gig, the lead singer decided he didn’t want to be in the band so I was given the gig. I was still a very shy performer at that stage but I’m very grateful to the band for being so patient with me whilst I learned to sing with my eyes open, to have fun and not be so self-critical.
And your guest appearances with the fabulous 9-piece KD Dance Orchestra? You’ve been performing with them for almost five years?
That’s right. This had been a great seven-piece swinging little big band and when they scaled up to a nine-piece they began looking for a soul singer to join them and I was thrilled to be asked to come on board. It’s a great combination for weddings and big parties; big band swing and upbeat jazzy numbers plus driving soul anthems and super dancy diva vocals too. We’re heading towards our third sold-out year for our annual gig at Pizza Express London in December. I just love playing with these guys. We are doing our first open gig at The Alex in Faversham on 29th November so I am looking forward to presenting the band at our first gig open to the public in Kent.
You’re able to generate a very special rapport with your audiences, particularly at the recent Canterbury Festival event – a relaxed “banter” between numbers and an invitation to respond – not only to your wit and self-deprecating humour but also about contemporary issues, like the toppling of the statue of the slave trader, Edward Colston, in Bristol. Is it important to you to make a connection in this way with your audience?
I like talking to people and it’s always great to make people laugh. I was being told that the lyrics I have written were “obscure”. I don’t think they are and there’s often an interesting story behind why we write songs and it is good to be able to share that. The sharing seems to work best in an intimate setting.
And your musical influences? Amongst your own songs, your set at the Westgate Hall also included numbers from Roberta Flack, The Real Thing and I know you’re a huge fan of Gregory Porter. Can you tell me why and when that began – maybe hearing a specific song at a specific time?
I was introduced to Gregory’s music on hearing 1960 What which I used to perform with Project F. I love GPs tone, his understated and seemingly effortless conveyance of emotion in his performance and his maddening liberties with phrasing and timing in the delivery of his songs. He is the perfect performer, at his absolute best when he is singing his own material.
And you’re not simply singing love songs either. You have strong views and aren’t afraid to share those with your audience – or the reasons why you’ve formed them – I wondered whether you might be into the work of someone I really admire – Gil Scott Heron?
Wow haven’t heard this in years… just shared it with the band.. and we are gonna do it!! GSH was the nuts!! Thanks for the reminder!
And I haven’t forgotten how Jeremy Corbyn turned up to one of your gigs?
Ah, that was Margate 2022 – I was performing with Project F in the piazza when Jezza suddenly arrived on the scene!
And I have the photos to prove it. I’d just been to hear him doing a talk at the Winter Gardens.
And finally… what’s next for Ginger Bennett?
I’m really looking forward to recording my new EP, Chouette, in the New Year with my Team GB Quintet and I’m SO happy to have been introduced to ‘Canterbury Sound’ legend, Geoffrey Richardson. We’ll be recording at his fabulous space, Unit B, near Canterbury, and are already excited to bring his warm studio sound to our music. I can’t wait.
Neither can we, Ginger. Rugby’s loss… is our gain.
Songs from my Soul is available on all of those streaming platforms – just look for Ginger Bennett – and is also available for purchase and download on BandCamp here:
https://gingerbennett.bandcamp.com/album/songs-from-my-soul-2
All upcoming gigs can be found on Ginger Bennett’s website right here:
Ginger Bennett lives in Whitstable and is most often seen performing with her six-piece funk and soul outfit, Project F, or guest appearances with the fabulous 9 piece KD Jazz Orchestra.
A regular performer at the Margate Soul and Canterbury Festival, she is known for an intimate style of performance that always involves spirited audience participation. www.gingerzedhead.co.uk/gigs
Julie Wassmer is a Whitstable-based author, TV writer and environmental campaigner.
She has successfully fought a number of environmental issues, including fracking in Kent and tree clearances by Network Rail. Her Whitstable Pearl crime novels are now a major TV series, starring Kerry Godliman.
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