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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Singing for the Lord Mayor’s Show (in 1620!)
Back in October last year, I was really pleased to record the two part song for the Lord Mayor’s Show in 1620, for Prof Tracey Hill to use as part of her live-tweeting of the show. As far as we know, it hasn’t been heard in the intervening 400 years…
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John Balshaw’s Jig – an update
I’ve recently been putting the final touches to my next book – my publication of my transcription of John Balshaw’s Jig, with the context around it too. The readers suggested somequite radical structural changes which I worked on before Easter, but I think it is much improved for the process. Given the trouble that I…
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Sound Affects II
Last week, I was really pleased to be able to attend the second day of the Sound Affects II workshop, organised by Rachel Willie and Emilie Murphy for their Soundscapes in the Early Modern World research network. The first paper was given by Wayne Weaver, a PhD student at Cambridge. His ‘Musical Performance Commentaries and…
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Gender, Authority and the Image of Queenship
Just before the end of 2020, my article ‘Gender, Authority and the Image of Queenship in English and Scottish Ballads, 1553–1603‘ came out in History. It was based mainly on a paper that I gave a couple of years ago to the EFDSS Broadside Day in Glasgow. Many of you will know that Mary I…
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Social History Society job
I’m really pleased to say that two weeks ago, I was appointed as the new administrator for the Social History Society. Most of the time, it’s only going to be one day a week, but for the first time in many, many years, I’ve got a small but steady and reliable year-round income (at least…
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