JEZ LOWE and KATE BRAMLEY at Newcastle and Hunter Valley Folk Club.
3rd March, at 7.30pm.
I grew up in the North East of England like Jez Lowe. Everyone in those days, watched Look North on evening TV, and Mike Neville was the much loved anchorman.
The job he had to do was appalling in retrospect - it was always bad news. Mrs Thatcher deliberately turned off the finance tap to all the old working class areas that would never vote Conservative. Newcastle, Durham and Liverpool were cases in point. The way that Maggie dealt with mines and the miners was legendary in its callousness.
Little maintenance was done to the mines, so accidents were fairly common. My favourite Jez song is "The Last of the Widows". Like me. Jez would have heard the voice of Mike Neville intone the latest 'Lost' or 'missing' statistics, while the women, in coats and headscarves, turned their misery inwards to each other.
So bleak, so heartless and so frequent.
'Coal Town Days' notes the ending of mining in the UK. It was cheaper to import it. Many of those areas had been producing coal since Medieval days, and mining families traced their lineage through generations. If they had been an endangered species of animal they would have had all the money they needed.
The humour of mining families comes through in many of the songs - 'Durham Gaol' is great i.e.
Q. teacher: "Where does coal come from?"
A. Kid: "Next door's yard"
Jez's humour has become sharper over the years. A recent album "Wotcheor" TTRDC111, (Howdee, in Geordie) is full of gorgeous funny ones, plus a couple of toughies, like "The Judas Bus" about scab labour.
I hope they have brought lots of CD's with them, but if you miss out contact him on www.jezlowe.com.
** Just a note on Mike Neville. He got a promotion to a Southern TV station. Such were the howls and protests of the Northerners, that Mike gave up the new job, and finished his working life on Tyneside.
