A series of contemporary folk songs and short films were released on Sunday as part of the 21st Century Folk initiative to celebrate the lives and experiences of five people across the north-east of England.
The programmes, launched by BBC Radio 2 in partnership with BBC Local Radio, follow the songwriters as they meet the people selected to take part in the project. The songwriters were then tasked with creating folk music from the contributors’ stories that told relatable tales of life in the north-east, which were then performed by local musicians.
The people selected to take part ranged from a doctor who administered thousands of Covid vaccines during the pandemic, to a foyboatman who helps ships from around the world moor on the Wearside docks.
This project is a modern take on the historic BBC Radio Ballads, a series of documentaries made in the 1950s and 1960s for the BBC Home Service that weaved the real voices of working communities with traditional folk songs.
Andrea Bell, who runs a soup kitchen and food bank called the Sunderland Community Soup Kitchen, was chosen to share her story. Bell was partnered with singer-songwriter Martyn Joseph, who composed and performed Albert’s Place, inspired by Bell’s life.
Singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore from Oxfordshire wrote She Speaks in Colours, capturing the story of Delyth Raffell from Blyth, who tragically lost her teenage daughter, Ellen, aged just 16, to anaphylaxis. The One Show on BBC One will feature Raffell, showing the moment Gilmore performed her song to her for the very first time, tonight at 7pm.
Katie Toner, 28, from Northumberland was also picked to tell her story, which was taken up by singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Angeline Morrison. Toner runs an inclusive events business, where she organises accessible parties and sleepovers for neurodiverse children. She has autism and ADHD and said typical children’s parties were often overwhelming as a child.
Toner said she was shocked when she found out she had been selected for the project, but felt grateful to be given the opportunity to open up conversations about neurodiversity.
“When it’s your life, it’s just your life. It’s not until you sit back and talk to people that you realise perhaps it’s more unique than I realised it was,” Toner said.
“I’m a really proud ADHD and autism advocate so if I can tell my story and other people’s stories too, that’s even better.”
Morrison, whose album was named the Guardian’s best folk album of 2022, said it was a real honour to be approached for the project.
“I’ve done lots of collaborations, I’ve done commissions, lots of toplining, but I’ve never been asked to write a song about a particular living person before. It’s a great honour but there’s a lot of weight that comes with that too.
“I really loved listening to Katie talk about her life. She seems like a proud liver of life and somebody who is taking all the uniqueness of who they are and pouring it into beautiful things for other people. She really is an incredibly generous person.”
Toner’s song, A Dream for You, was performed by the Unthanks.
“The heart of this project was bringing the community together, so for Radio 2 to bring me and Angeline from opposite ends of the country, but then me and the Unthanks, from literally a 12-minute drive away … it’s just brilliant.”
Other contributors included Michael Dodds, a fifth-generation foyboatman in the port of Sunderland. Dodds met the Squeeze lyricist Chris Difford, who was inspired by Dodd’s stories of his life and work, to write Foyboatmen. Difford performs the song with the singer Kathryn Williams, who composed the music.
Dr Ifti Lone, a dedicated GP working in Middlesbrough, had his story told by songwriter Sean Cooney. Cooney performed the song Doctor Boro with his bandmates, the Young’uns.
21st Century Folk is available on BBC Radio 2 across this week and all the songs can be heard now on BBC Sounds.
• This article was amended on 9 January 2023. A previous version omitted to credit Kathryn Williams, who composed the music for the song Foyboatmen and sings on the track.
