The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #174616   Message #4234246
Posted By: Bupkes
13-Jan-26 - 12:15 PM
Thread Name: 2026 Obit: Tim Radford (RTim)
Subject: RE: 2026 Obit: Tim Radford (RTim)
These biographical notes, transcribed from Tim Radford’s album “Home From Home” [2005], may help people know more about him, until a more complete obituary comes out:
«Tim Radford was born in Hampshire, England [on January 4, 1947], on the edge of The New Forest. His family had for generations all lived within 50 miles of where he was born. Singing has always had an impact on his life. He can remember from the earliest years his father singing at many work socials and revue shows.
    At school Tim was part of the choir and also took part in the Gilbert & Sullivan productions. As a teenager in the 1960s he sang the vocals in a local Youth Club band called “The Ravons” (featuring Ravin’ Mad Radford)! However, it was not until the late 1960s that folk music became part of his life. His first collaboration was with guitarist friend John Ode, with whom he auditioned for Hughie Green's talent show “Opportunity Knocks”. Later Tim and John formed the Folk Group “Breckenridge”, which won the Hampshire Youth Club's Folk competition. Most of their material was influenced by popular British and American folk music.
    While singing with Breckenridge Tim met Dave Williams, a well-known and highly respected folk performer in the South of England. Dave introduced Tim to unaccompanied singing, playing him the recordings of traditional singer Harry Cox and bringing to his attention the local folk song collections of George Gardiner from Hampshire and The Hammond Brothers from Dorset. This lit a fire of enthusiasm under Tim, who began to sing solo at folk clubs across southern Hampshire.
    At the same time, Tim began country dancing and morris dancing again (he had done both as a 9-year-old at school, but not seriously). The folk dancing took place at a biweekly barn dance at The Haywain Inn in Cadnam, where he would also occasionally sing a song at the break. Through this activity he met Alf and Helen Woodall; Helen later became Tim's regular harmony singing partner, while Alf joined him in founding The Twynham Morris Men of Christchurch.
    Dave Williams also persuaded Tim to go to the weekly folk club held at The Bay Tree Inn in Southampton — the still famous “Foc's'le Folk Music Club” where he soon became a resident singer with Dave, Steve & Cheryl Jordan, and Geoff Jerram. Before Tim moved to Oxfordshire in 1973, these five regular Foc's'le singers were recorded by Forest Tracks on an album of songs from the George Gardiner collection called “Folk Songs From Hampshire”.
    This proved to be such a success that it was later followed with “Folk Songs From Dorset”, songs from the Hammond Brothers collection.
    These two vinyl recordings, plus some additional newly recorded tracks, are to be reissued as a double CD by Forest Tracks in June 2005. [(www . forest-tracks . co . uk), link not active]
    The move to Oxfordshire saw some changes in Tim's folk life. Although singing still continued, morris dancing became a more central preoccupation, first with Oxford City Morris and then, after meeting John & Chris Leslie, Bryan Sheppard and others, with the newly revived Adderbury Morris Men.
   For a while Tim sang regularly at The Prince of Wales Folk Club, which later became the Banbury Folk Club. However, morris began to take more and more of his time and eventually became his only folk activity. By 1981, when the Banbury Folk Club ended, Tim was only singing at morris events or occasionally in the local pub. At this time he also began dancing with the revived Kirtlington Morris, a team he had originally taught, and with the occasional touring team Duns Tew Morris. In addition he helped in the formation of Bloxham Morris, primarily for his daughter Catherine, after his son Michael joined the Adderbury Morris Men.
   In 1990, Kirtlington Morris visited the USA and danced at The Marlboro Morris Ale, the premier morris event in North America. This resulted in a big change in Tim's life when he met musician and dancer Jan Elliott, founder of Ha'penny Morris of Boston. Visits to North America increased, including trips to Pinewoods Camp in Plymouth, Massachusetts where Tim sang and taught morris.
   All this finally culminated in Tim's moving to Woods Hole, MA in 1997. Once there he joined the Boston-based Pinewoods Morris Men and, through Jan, became involved with Thames Valley International of London, Ontario, Canada. He and Jan also formed the third incarnation of a morris team in Woods Hole called “Woods Hole Village Morris.” However, age and hard pavements finally put an end to his active dancing days, so to stay involved Tim has now come back to singing.
   While settling in his new home Tim sang briefly in a band called “First Light” with Jan on concertina and fiddler Jacquie Fehon. He now sings and plays percussion with “Beggar's Description”, a band specializing in music of the British Isles and Celtic countries. The group includes Jan
on English concertina, recorder, pennywhistle, and crumhorn, and former Woods Hole Village Morris cohorts Barbara Blair on fiddle and Ron Geering on Anglo concertina, hurdy gurdy, and hammered dulcimer.
   The solo album “Home From Home” came about from Tim's desire to sing more, having sprung from a discussion on the subject with morris dancer, singer and songwriter Ian Robb, who owns the recording label “Fallen Angle Music” [https://www.ianrobb.com].
Ian is a superb singer who performs with the Canadian harmony group “Finest Kind” as well as “JIIG,” a five-piece band from Ottawa, which also includes “Home From Home” sound engineer and multi-instrumentalist James Stephens. These two friends have been of invaluable assistance in turning Tim's CD project into a reality, and they deserve special thanks, along with the graphic designer Paul Brierley.
   When not singing, Tim spends most of his time either on the golf course or in the kitchen, where Regional Italian is a specialty.»

https://web.archive.org/web/20231202175842/http://timradford.com/index.html

— Marty Stock