At the start of this year, things did not look good for the Waterson-Carthy folk dynasty. It was, as Eliza Carthy put it, “struggling to survive”. Her mother, the celebrated singer Norma Waterson, had been unable to tour for a decade after falling into a coma that left her having to re-learn how to walk and talk. She’d never returned to full health and had recently been hospitalised with pneumonia. Meanwhile, Covid lockdowns had deprived the MBE-awarded Eliza and her father, the revered singer-songwriter Martin Carthy, of their means of income. Being self-employed, like many artists, they didn’t qualify for furlough, just a small business grant that lasted six months.
“By the third lockdown,” says Carthy, “we were looking at selling our instruments.”
