Songs for the voiceless - help!

Subject: RE: Songs for the voiceless - help!
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Sep 13 - 03:21 AM

In 1969 I was asked to assist a friend from Liverpool to record his grandfather, a Liverpool docker who had spent 'an interesting life'
It was my first time out with a tape recorder and I was more than a little nervous, but there really was no need, after the first five minutes the speaker forgot we were there and over the next few days relived his experiences as a soldier in France and as a Trades Union organiser on the Liverpool docks in the 'Hungry Thirties'.
Tommy Kenny had lied about his age as a young teenager and enlisted to fight in France in WW1.
He filled tape after tape with his experiences, tragic, funny, sometimes horrific, remembering clearly all the small details of the trenches - only on two occasions did he lose the thread of what he was saying. The first time was when he broke down while telling us how he lost the outer parts of his ears when a large gun mis-fired and exploded in their faces.
The other occasion was when he described the treatment of the 'deserters'.
He said that the noise was so intense and constant that the lads were simply walking away from it - not escaping, there was nowhere to escape to, just trying to "get away from the bloody noise".
The Red-Caps would travel around, herd them together and take them back to camp, where they would be routinely tried, automatically sentenced to death and imprisoned awaiting the sentence to be carried out.
If there was a "big push" on, they would be taken out and put into the front line; if they survived they would be put back into the prison and later executed, as if nothing had happened.
Tommy said that "one minute you'd be talking about home and swapping fags with fellers your own age, the next, you'd read the notices posted up saying they'd been taken out and shot".
He then burst into tears, then he cursed himself for being a "sentimental old bugger".
Glory, glory days!!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Songs for the voiceless - help!
From: maeve
Date: 29 Sep 13 - 06:38 AM

Looks like you've made it- congratulations!

Subject: RE: Songs for the voiceless - help!
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 13 - 03:34 AM

The blue clicky thing:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/292184114/songs-for-the-voiceless

Subject: Songs for the voiceless - help!
From: GUEST,Ian Stephenson
Date: 29 Sep 13 - 03:32 AM

Hi 'Catters!

It's been a while since I was on here!

We have this WW1 folk songs project we are trying to get off the ground,

There are some awesome musicians involved: The Young Uns, Jon Boden, myself, Tom Oakes, Gilmore/Roberts and Michael J Tinker. And we've got some fantastic material to work with.

It's a crowd-funded project and we're 78% there - people who would eventually like an album or something more special can pledge to buy those things if the project goes ahead. If we don't get enough pledges then we don't get funded and the project doesn't happen.

Sorry for such an ad - but we are so close - but there are only 2 hours left!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/292184114/songs-for-the-voiceless


Many Thanks!
Ian Stephenson