Billy Bragg - A People's History has just been published. The book is an oral history of the singer-songwriter and political activist. It’s the story of the Bard of Barking in the words of over 600 people who have been moved by his music, either seeing Billy in concert, on a demonstration or on TV. You can find my contribution at the foot of this post.
I have always loved Billy Bragg’s work, especially Tank Park Salute, an elegy to his father who died when Billy was just 18 years old. I saw Billy last year in Leeds and when he played Tank Park Salute, all the blokes around me were mouthing the words, their eyes brimming with tears. Nearly three years ago, I wrote to Billy to tell him how much the song means to me...
Dear Billy
As a 58 year-old retired state secondary school headteacher, whose dad died nearly 38 years ago, I just wanted to tell you that Tank Park Salute still affects me like no other work of art.
I often try to work out why your song has such an impact upon me. I have learnt through poets like Seamus Heaney and Tony Harrison that the best work is pared down, not simplistic but simple. And that form and content have to be as one – never truer than in Tank Park Salute. The aching regret for all that was lost – so gently expressed in the lyrics without a hint of mawkishness – is echoed in the song's melody, its intensity derived from its lucidity.
My dad died of cancer in my second term at university. I was 20. He was 57. I have written about him in my first book Love Over Fear, and here on my blog.
He was a postman all his life, from leaving school at 14 with no qualifications to the day he died. I wrote this sonnet about him just over a year ago:
On reaching the same age as my dad when he died
At 4 a.m. each working day you rose,
Awoken by your Baby Ben’s alarm
Whose tyrant-ring the grind of work imposed
And clanged you out into the breaking dawn.
A life dictated by that jarring note,
Your thirties schooling meant no choice for you;
Though you could read quite well, you barely wrote –
The collar of your postman’s shirt was blue.
Your clock sits on a shelf above my desk,
Its bell long stilled; arms stuck at five past three.
And as I write or chat or sit and think
I feel its presence glower over me.
The oval face looks down and seems to ask,
What granted you such untold liberty?
17 November 2021
To go from him and my mother – both of whom had no qualifications, living in a council house with five kids – to me and then to our sons Joe (named after Joe Strummer, of course) and Olly, who both went to university as a matter of course, is the kind of social mobility you rarely find nowadays. To give working class kids a choice about how they lived their lives was the single motivating force of my 33 years in teaching.
Here is my dad in 1955, second row, middle – at the heart of things…
I took a tin of Heroes chocolates down to the picket line at York sorting office last week. As someone once said, there is power in a union...
So, Tank Park Salute is sublime. I just needed to say that. Enough. You're a busy man and it's Christmas.
Keep up the good fight.
Season's greetings - your comrade ever,
John
And, as you’d expect, Billy replied:
Hi John,
Thanks for sending me the sonnet and photo of your dad, and for your kind words about Tank Park Salute.
Lots of similarities between our fathers: both born in the 1920s, left education after secondary school, working class and died in their 50s.
If Tank Park Salute helps you in any way to come to terms with the loss of your father at such an early age, then I'm glad, because that's what writing it did for me.
All the best for the coming year,
Billy
So, I post this today on the eve of my dad’s birthday. And here is Billy performing Tank Park Salute.
PS. My contribution to Billy Bragg - A People's History:
When in Yorkshire…
York’s Grand Opera House was a slightly gentile setting to see Billy Bragg as he began his Hope Not Hate Tour Part II. The right has been on the rise in Britain forever, it seems, and on 1 December 2006, Billy took to the road again to proclaim his vision of a truly united United Kingdom and resist the loathsome BNP.
The York Press predicted that Billy would play “songs old and new from next year's new album, and songs both political and romantic.” And they were right. It was a tight set. There were old favourites – my wife is a history teacher and “The Saturday Boy” with its line, “double history twice a week”, always resonates – and poignant covers – that hymn to unity, “The World Turned Upside Down” penned by Leon Rosselson, kicked things off.
After the show, I hung around the stage door and was the last fan to have a conversation with Billy and his roadie. We talked about losing our dads when we were young (like so many men who’ve lost their dads, “Tank Park Salute” destroys me every time), the influence of Joe Strummer upon us both, how we could be proud of our country but not xenophobic, and his new book, The Progressive Patriot. He was, apparently, signing copies in Borders the next morning.
Beyond the rousing, climactic rendition of “New England” and the conversation afterwards, what struck me all evening was the sheer number of cups of herbal tea Billy drank. Every other tune, it seemed, his roadie would trudge dutifully across the stage with a fresh brew…
I set off for Borders early on the Saturday. I live in Yorkshire. The herbal tea thing had amused me. I had a plan. On the way, I popped into Tesco’s and bought a box of Yorkshire Tea bags. Billy needed to know that you don’t come to God’s Own County and drink anything other than its eponymous drink.
There was a queue for the book signing. Billy exchanged pleasantries with people and when he was signing my copy, there was a faint glimmer of recognition in his eyes and even, perhaps, a recollection of our conversation from the night before. I said, “Billy, I have a gift for you. You can’t come to Yorkshire and drink herbal tea. Here is some proper tea!” I handed him the tea bags.
Billy accepted my offering. A grin spread across his face and, without missing a beat, he replied, “Ah, but all proper-tea is theft!”