I was born in Goole, and never left the town until I went to university and, in spite of living in many different places since, still think of it as “home.” But it wasn’t until about five years ago that I began to be involved with professional performance there and in the region, starting with The Stopping Train with SoundUK (designed to be listened to on the Goole to Hull stopping train, and back). I met the then mayor Terence Smith at that time (at 19 the youngest mayor in the country) and developed a friendship with Charlie Studdy, director of the arts centre Junction until his recent retirement. I gave performances at Junction, and elsewhere in the East Riding (Winestead, in Holderness, for Hull City of Culture; Nothing like the Sun in Hull). A Song for Us is SoundUK’s project to produce songs that celebrate different counties and regions. Mine is a new collaboration with them and Junction for a piece for voices and brass instruments. The plan was to use the space within Junction, placing some brass players in the upper gallery and so on. It is designed to celebrate the special character and spirit of the East Riding and of Goole in particular.
Blake Morrison wrote the text, having visited the town when we wrote The Stopping Train together, and he developed a feeling for the place’s special character. It was when we were talking on the river bank at the end of the street where I had lived that he was struck by the sense of space and openness, the flatness of the landscape and the power of the river. As it happened, when we were standing there, Eric Lawton, for many years chairman of Goole Town football club and who I had got to know over the last 15 years or so, came up the steps to the bank. We spent some time talking about our shared experiences of local football and he told stories about his lifetime’s commitment to the team. He died a year or so ago. For me no one embodies the spirit of the town and county better than him and the work is dedicated to his memory.
Blake Morrison: Above Water (A Song for the East Riding – from Goole)
On the level. Self-reliant. A salt and pepper town
Heads above water. Born survivors. Try to drown us and we bob back up.
Some folk say they’re worried. I aren’t. This town has known worse. The day the crane came down, the tug sank, the Zeppelin dropped its load. We’ve learned to look after ourselves. Toughing it out.
Smoke chuffling from dykes like rolling tumbleweed. A moorhen midstream with its chevron of chicks.
Water surrounds us. And water sets us free. By canal to Liverpool, by the Ouse to the sea. Rotterdam feels closer than London.
Grey tide of daybreak, grey tide coming in, slipping through culverts and rising through reeds. Wherever we go, the water goes too.
I remember the floats at Whitsun. I remember Woolworths. I remember Tom Puddings. All gone now. Not us, though. I aren’t going nowhere.
A sleepy hollow. But we’re vibrant, wide-awake. Alert to the heron by the riverbank. The damselflies and willow-tits. The whistle in the fog.
Big sky, open fields, where a tree’s a major incident. We’re straight down the line, us. Level-headed but quick on our feet.
East, west, no matter which Riding we’re stuck in, the sky and the fields stay the same.
The tides rising and falling, the ships slowly turning, the clouds looking up at themselves. It dun’t get better than this.
My family goes right back. My family came from elsewhere. Makes no odds. We’re in this together. Some call it Yorkshire. I call it home.
All that water easing past. Never stopping, getting through to where it’s aimed. I’ll take my bearings from that.
On the level. Heads above water. Toughing it out.
Audio Journal link: