Top Kid

I am delighted to share our first film from the Moving Panorama performance at People’s History Museum with the Booth Centre as part of Manchester Histories Featuring Roy Johnson, Matt Hill/ Quiet Loner With artwork led by artist Lois Blackburn…. Look out for more films in the next while…

A TOP KID (Lyrics by Roy Johnson, music Matt Hill)

 Fightin a cause,                            on no ones bid
A union boy fought                      for an xtra quid
Shouted in the bosses kipper     he no hid
Ended in the big house,              2 years he did

Campaigned for the workers, stood up for the men

Like others had before him and like others will again

His name was Ricky Tommo and we’ll remember him

He’s a top top kid, He’s a top top kid, He’s a top kid

A mixed race lad        a freed slave Dad
Worked as a tailor     when times waz bad
Three times he wed   three times a cad
Van Diemans land     His end waz sad

Campaigned for the workers, stood up for the men

Like others had before him and like others will again

His name was William Cuffay and we’ll remember him

He’s a top top kid, He’s a top top kid, He’s a top kid 

BRIDGE
Top top kid                         Top top kid

Top top top top, top top top top kid

Top top top top, top top top top kid

A Glazgie boy             Jock waz a rock
Morning Star              rolled up in iz sock
What a man                like a barrel and a lock
Hated the bosses       with their shares and stock

Campaigned for the workers, stood up for the men

Like others had before him and like others will again

His name was Jock the rock and we’ll remember him

He’s a top top kid, He’s a top top kid He’s a top kid

[Bridge to playout]

Cover photo, thanks to Jenny White.

Save the date

You are invited to a Lunchtime celebration and performance of the arts project Moving Panorama, on Monday 11^th June at The People’s History Museum, 12-1.00.  Moving Panorama is the latest collaborative project with arts organisation arthur+martha, Singer Songwriter Matt Hill/The Quiet Loner, The Booth Centre and The People’s History Museum.

Further details will follow shortly. But for now, please put the date in your diary and share it with interested colleagues.

Supported by Arts Council England, The Booth Centre and People’s History Museum.

Bringing colour

Our days spent at The Booth Centre for the project Moving Panorama typically fall into a pattern, in the morning Matt and I work in the main one-to-one with people, it might be editing songs or gathering new material in the form of life story work, or themed interviews. Sometimes it’s simply chatting, listening, having a conversation- this activity could be easily undervalued, but it’s having time to be still and listen, that helps to build trust, builds a relationship and motivates new people to join our afternoon group sessions.

At times there are things that are very difficult to hear, cruelties re-told, re-examined, re-lived. Many if not most of the people we work with have suffered trauma of one description or another. The Booth Centre works to support people through their issues and to find ways to look and move forward.

Kathryn’s sun

The art and music we create during the project Moving Panorama subtly supports this process. We see people’s confidence and skills improving, abstaining from drink or drugs, surprising themselves about their capabilities, finding joy in abilities they didn’t know they had. This project is also supporting and challenging my own work as an artist. The quality of the collaborative song-writing that Matt is leading, and the art work that our group is producing, is keeping me on my toes, re-freshing and challenging my art practice, keeping it fresh, motivating me.

Yesterday afternoon we brought colour into the project- literally- until now all of our scrolls have been in black and white. Rolled out on the long table was 10 meters of white paper. We took out paint brushes for a walk, between readings of the first draft lyrics to one of the new song ‘Always Forward‘. It’s a song that thinks about all the people who have walked the streets of Manchester before us, and those walking them (or sleeping on them) right now. We all walked around the paper, filling it up quickly with vivid colours, crossing one anothers paths. The physicality of creating art, the speed and looseness, made us quickly warm up and relax into art making. We became quiet and focussed, enjoying the nature of the art materials as colours bleed into one another, the delight and magic of the process of painting.

Ian’s tent in Manchester

Into these painted pathways, we started drawing, writing and painting in response to the lyrics of the song. The scroll quickly took on a depth of meaning, a curiosity,  a maturity. The resulting artwork will look different again once they are moving across the Moving Panorama frame, at which point it maybe edited, drawn into again. The scroll artworks we are created stand alone as individual pieces, but I am confident that when they are performed with the songs, both artistic disciplines will enhance and bring alive each other.  We will get to try this out very soon….

Artist Lois Blackburn writing about the project Moving Panorama, a collaboration between The Booth Centre, Matt Hill/The Quiet Loner, Lois Blackburn, and The People’s History Museum. Supported by Arts Council England.

 

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Tinplate workers

Drawing a long line

Today we visited the People’s History Museum. I met Ian for the first time, he’s currently homeless and came to the museum today carrying a sleeping bag with all his belongings inside it. As we chatted I found out that Ian was a builder by trade and is very knowledgeable about natural history as well as social history. He told us –

I’ve visited more museums since I’ve been homeless than I ever did before.

As we went round the museum Ian’s eye was taken by this oath – sworn by one of the Tin Plate Workers Society. They were a very early form of trade union – back when it was illegal to join one. It was clear they took membership of their society very seriously –

“If I reveal any of this solemn obligation. may all the Society disgrace me so long as I live and may what is now before me plunge my soul into the everlasting pit of misery”

Later on I caught up with Ian and his friend Kathryn, sat round a table attempting to make some match boxes. The challenge was to demonstrate how ‘sweated labour’ had been a norm in the 19th century. Whole families would work from home assembling matchboxes. If they took longer than a minute per box it was likely they would starve and end up in the workhouse. Such was the low levels of pay for this piece work.

Later on we asked people to reflect on the museum and Ian wrote these lines, clearly taking his inspiration from the Tin plate Workers oath but giving it a twist –

Working in the everlasting pit of misery
So many hours, so little pay
Injuries the norm, death not unexpected

As we discussed as a group what we’d seen in the museum it became clear that some of the issues raised had played a part in people’s lives. Some of the older members of the group recalled the days of ‘closed shops’ when you couldn’t get a job unless you were in the union. One of our group recalled a protest for homeless rights he had taken part in.

We drew events onto a long scroll – marking dates and names. It was a long line that began with Thomas Paine back in 1792. Roy wrote a few lines about him, as he recalled working in Paine’s birthplace of Thetford, many years ago and how American tourists came to honour Tom Paine for his role in their independence.

With or without a brain
Plotted two revolutions – insane or sane?
Both without a penny gain
The great man – Thomas Paine

The scroll went on through the 19th and 20th century drawing a long line. As we read it all back, Danny reflected that “Every generation has its own fights”. We saw the line as one of progress as rights are won and eventually become taken for granted – like the right to vote. But also that in some areas we are going backwards and having to fight again for things we won before but have been eroded or taken away.

All of us there today brought our history with us. We’re all part of that long line.

Matt Hill/The Quiet Loner writing about arthur+martha’s project, Moving Panorama. Supported by Arts Council England, The Booth Centre and The People’s History Museum.