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  • The Ballad of Goodwill – probably part 1

    Back in April I spent a wonderful day in the company of the Post Workers Theatre and several academics working in the field of precarity and the marketisation of education. It was the culmination of the Post Workers Theatre residency at the University of Gothenburg, and the idea was that we would all contribute ideas…

  • Ballad and Song in the History of North West England

    I recently took part in an online study day on Ballad and Song in the History of North West England run by the Regional Heritage Centre at Lancaster University. Although I’ve taken part in a lot of online activities over the last 12 months, this was a little bit different. Back in April we speakers…

  • Historical Association Fellowship

    I’m really proud to announce that at the end of April, I was made an Honorary Fellow of the Historical Association. I’ve done an awful lot of work for the HA over the years, not least in being secretary of the Bolton Branch for some long time and of course I was Associate Vice President…

  • Glorious Sounds, Part 2

    On the second day of the Glorious Sounds conference, the plenary was a fascinating paper given by John Craig (Simon Fraser University) on ‘Sounding Godly: from Bilney to Bunyan’. He starting by raising a number of questions including how godly sounds affected the way people related to one another.  He went on to acknowledge the…

  • Glorious Sounds, Part I

    In a conscious effort to take a bit more advantage of the opportunities opened up by so many conferences this year taking place online, I’m trying to attend a few more. Some are things that I wouldn’t otherwise attend, because I wouldn’t have time or money to go to, but others, like the Sound Affects…