For My Mum

Born this day in 1921 in Harpurhey with Gotherswick in North Manchester within spitting distance of Boggart Hole Clough. . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . .  she would have been 100 today

Other famous residents include author of 'A Clockwork Orange' Anthony Burgess and Freddy Garrity of Freddie and The Dreamers of 'You were made for me' fame

She loved music from classical to folk and left wing agitprop songs especially and particularly the songs of the Owdham Tinkers so we grew up listening to Paul Robeson singing songs like Joe Hill and Northern folk songs amongst a smattering of choral classics she favoured like Kathleen Ferrier and she sang in the Hallé Choir as a young woman but she also enjoyed dance music of her era and she loved Bix Beiderbecke and the sound track to Pennies From Heaven. She was the only woman I ever knew who could dance the Charleston!

The Oldham Tinkers live - A Mon Like Thee

a favourite of my mother's and one that now inevitably reduces me to tears . . . . it contains the Northern philosophy towards hospitality and friendly social attitude especially to those who may have less than ourselves

PETERLOO

The Oldham Tinkers

by Harvey Kershaw

One of my proudest moments in life came about many years ago now when I was still at college and my brother Steve took me to Banbury Folk Club one winters evening and we had a beer and enjoyed the open mic part of the night when suddenly Steve stood and clutching his beloved Epiphone six string acoustic guitar promptly astonished me by walking up to the mic. He sang this notable Harvey Kershaw song about the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester where our parents came from. There has been much ado about the massacre of the innocents at this time as anniversaries will won't to bring about but this means but one thing to me that the importance of the song is doubly rich for me because of this moment.

I had never heard him sing to that day and although I had heard him play guitar and he tight himself to read music and we jammed often, I never realised he had learned someone else's song to perform. It meant a great deal to us this song, as a family, and to Steve in particular no doubt. His performance was hesitant at first and he was obviously self conscious and he was clearly suffering from stage fright as his voice cracked for a moment but his commitment to the song meant he persevered with it his voice grew stronger and clearer and he sang it complete and that the audience that knew it joined the chorus helped him relax somewhat sir that he received a rousing burst of applause at the end. I don't think I heard him sing after that but was so proud of his conquering his embarrassment and self consciousness to sing a song that meant such a great deal to him it made my heart swell near fit to burst. 

This is it . . . . . . . . by the people it was written for, The Oldham Tinkers

This verse sits at the end of Percy Shelley’s 1819 poem 'The Masque of Anarchy'.

The aristocrat-turned-radical wrote it as a funeral march for the British working class murdered by police at the Peterloo massacre.

80,000 people had gathered in Manchester to demand the vote. 700 of the protestors went home battered and bruised. 15 went home in coffins.

This event meant a great deal to my family and my parent's being from working class stock in Manchester one can understand why. It remains the one time I heard my brother sing in public at a folk club here in Oxfordshire when he stood up one open mike night and sang Harvey Kershaw's 'The Peterloo Massacre' I have never been so moved or so proud





Reason (if any were needed! It isn't!) to adore Maxine Peake . . . .