I’ve been receiving some nice reactions to A haven for farmland birds. Mark Avery, former Conservation Director at the RSPB, wrote in his Sunday Book Review that:

‘The book is about farmland birds, that bunch of declining species whose overall numbers have more than halved in my lifetime and focuses on the author’s counts and observations in a small but rich area of the Cambridge green belt… One can’t help but like the author through reading his words – I did anyway. He is an enthusiast and part of the charm of the book is his growing knowledge, understanding and enthusiasm for the location and its wildlife. All field biologists tend to fall in love with their chosen study areas and species of interest – and quite right too!’

Duncan Grey, writing in Shelford Village News, commented:

‘Meed is a wise companion in a walk around the fields, showing us what we might otherwise have missed, explaining the changes of the influences of the seasons on bird feeding and migration and providing asides on everything from the history and geography to the migration of the albatross.’

I’ve also received encouraging feedback from readers, including ‘What a fascinating book’, ‘I never had imagined I could get so interested in grey partridges’ and ‘marvellous book’, while a former farmer commented that he ‘could not put it down’. Chris in Harrogate adds:

‘I have just finished reading your book – what an excellent achievement. I’m immensely impressed with your commitment, knowledge and expertise. I enjoyed the relating of your experiences as well as gaining a lot of knowledge about the birds and wildlife.’

I will be giving some talks about the book over the coming months: Friday, February 24th from 7pm in Rock Road Library, and September 25th to the Cambridge Local Wildlife Group. I have also prepared a video to accompany the book:

A haven for farmland birds is available from NHBS or my Bandcamp page.

With the complications associated with Covid over the least 2+ years I’ve had very little news to share with you. But, rather like London buses (or possibly the last bus to Leeds), you wait for ever for an item of news, and then three come along at once.

Firstly, many of you will know that I am also a writer and researcher. I conduct ecological surveys for the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO), the RSPB, and the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme. Over the last ten years I have been surveying the wildlife in a group of arable fields in the green belt just south of Cambridge which provide a home for threatened farmland birds including grey partridge, corn bunting and yellow wagtail. I have learnt much about their ecology, why they are under such threat, why they flourish in the small area I study, and about their fascinating and comples behaviour, relationships and social lives. And I have just published a book, A haven for farmland birds, which describes what I have learnt. You can read more about it here and you can order a copy here.

Secondly, Rhys and I had long harboured the idea of revisiting some of my early songs live – just me with a guitar or piano – to reflect better how I play them now. During the Covid lockdowns a genuinely live album became impossible, so the closest we could get was to record each song in Rhys’s front room in a single take. And in the end we were even able to record The last bus to Leeds live at the Cambridge Folk Club this February. The ten songs are now available on a new album, ‘Almost live’. You can listen, order or download it from my Bandcamp page and I will have copies at my forthcoming gigs.

Talking of which, I have a very local gig on September 30th, organised by the friends of Rock Road library. It was originally planned for the library itself, but will now take place in the Friends Meeting House in Hartington Grove. This is a double-header with the String Section, and I will be joined by Lucinda Fudge (viola), Matt Kelly (violin and viola) and Rhys Wilson (guitar). Entry is free.

I hope you have been surviving the strange times we have lived through over the last two years. It’s been a difficult time for all involved in the music scene, but I’m especially conscious of the small clubs who have had to navigate their way through changing and often opaque restrictions while caring for the health and well-being of their audiences and performers. I have many reasons to be grateful for the support of Cambridge Folk Club over the years – they nurtured me through my early years as a performer and even enabled me to share a stage with the legendary Norma Waterson who so sadly passed away last month. And they rose to the challenges presented by the pandemic with their characteristic good humour and great competence, firstly running on-line Zoom concerts (of which a highlight for me was an unexpected star appearance by Boo Hewardine’s cat!!) and then experimenting with a different venue for social distancing purposes. All of this, I know, takes time, energy and commitment.

But they are now back in their usual venue and I’m therefore especially pleased that my first gig of 2022 will be at their showcase on Friday February 18th. Also playing will be two singer-songwriters who I hold in high esteem: Gary Woolley and Belinda Gillett. It takes place in the Golden Hind, 355 Milton Road, Cambridge CB4 1SP; the music starts at 8pm and tickets (£9) are available from the club’s website. Do check out the other gigs they have planned – the club deserves all the support we can give them.

Looking ahead to later in the spring, I have two church concerts planned for May in collaboration with Thursday’s Band: Saturday May 14th in St John the Evangelist, Hills Rd, Cambridge CB2 8RN (https://www.stjohntheevangelistcambridge.org) and Saturday May 28th in St Mary’s Church, High Street, Ware, SG12 9EH at 7.30pm (https://arts.stmarysware.co.uk/upcoming-events/). A third may also happen at the very start of May – you will be the first to hear!
It would be lovely to see you at one or more of these events; but I completely understand anyone who feels it may still be too early to venture out at this stage.
With my best wishes, especially for good health

I don’t think any of us will be too sad to say goodbye to 2020. It has been a difficult year for everyone, and I hope you have been able to survive so far. Here are my annual musical reflections.

I managed a handful of gigs before the lockdowns started, though that all seems a very long time ago now! Thursday’s Band I played a lovely concert to a packed Stotfold Church (Bedfordshire) in February and with Mark Gamon’s help managed to film a new song, ‘Progress’, with Lucinda Fudge on viola and Matt Kelly on violin. You can watch it here:

After that the only scope for live music was Zoom and Facebook Live – not the real thing of course, but it helped to keep us slightly saner. Most of the concerts I have taken part in (and helped organise in the case of Cambridge Acoustic Nights) are still available online – there are links on my gigs page.

Despite all the problems there has been some really good new music this year. Here are some of my favourites:

– Adrianne Lenker’s ‘’
– Juliana Barwick’s ‘’
– Swedish duo I Break Horses’ ‘’
– Harpist Mary Lattimore’s ‘’
– Scottish/Lancastrian band Modern Studies’ ‘’
– Yorkshire group The Howl and the Hum’s ‘Hostages’
– The sensational ‘Kick‘ from Spanish Love Songs

It’s been a tough year for musicians – the absence of their usual revenue from live concerts leaves music sales as their main source of income. So please consider buying music direct from the artists (I have given Bandcamp addresses where possible), or from independent record shops, rather than streaming via Spotify et al who pay artists virtually nothing.

Away from the music, it’s been a difficult year for us personally, as indeed for so many people. We lost both my sister and Isabelle’s mum in the autumn – indeed the two funerals took place just a week apart. I gave a tribute to my sister which you can read here.

I did at least have more time for my ecological survey work. If that interests you, there are more details here.

Here’s hoping that once enough of us are vaccinated (my 94 year-old mum has just had her first one) live music will once again become more feasible and that we’ll perhaps be able to share a real concert before too long. And here’s wishing you as good a festive season as will be possible in this so unusual year, and good health for the year to come.

At the start of 2020 my sister Catherine was diagnosed with a return of a cancer that we thought had been cured four years ago. The doctors were not able to find a treatment that could help her, but she bore the pain and discomfort with great patience. She died on October 31st. Here is the text of the tribute I gave at her funeral on November 16th.

My very first memory is of a newborn Catherine coming home from hospital with our mother, Beryl, to the terraced house on the Spotland Road in Rochdale where we lived while the vicarage was being prepared. It was in Rochdale that we learnt that Catherine would go through life with learning disabilities. As I grew older, and after we had moved away from Rochdale, I became conscious of the prejudice that disability could provoke – but as school friends visited our house, Catherine’s gentle kindness and her joyful happiness helped them to see that disability was not something to be feared or laughed at, but something that brought its own love, strengths and specialness.

Catherine has had a profound influence on me. I have learnt much from her and a friend wrote how ‘she seems to have a kind presence’ in me; I hope that is true. I’ve had messages from friends across the country, and even Australia. Catherine loved it when my university friends came to stay and Pam, widow of my best friend Dave, wrote: ‘Cathy was a lovely soul. I remember her singing and happiness when we visited you.’

After moving to the village of Felsham in Suffolk with our parents, Beryl and Harry, Catherine’s influence spread through the community. I have been conscious going through the messages we have received that people in the village clearly loved her and also, to quote Beryl’s friend Elizabeth, her own ‘deep sense of security, knowing she was loved’. The vicar, Sharon Potter, described how ‘it has been a privilege to be involved with Catherine’ while Richard Stainer recalled ‘such fond memories of Catherine’. A special memory for many is caught by the former vicar, Simon: ‘her spontaneous, enthusiastic joy and shrieks as she skipped up and down the aisle before a service’. She also enjoyed theatre visits with Beryl, especially to the opera and above all the ice cream during the break!

Stowmarket Community Hub became a central part of Catherine’s life. Team members there recall ‘Catherine’s beautiful keyboard playing and her willingness to take part in a variety of activities both at the Hub, the local leisure centre and out in the community’. At the time, ‘Catherine was the only learning disabled person ever to be accepted into the Stowmarket Art Club and have four paintings on show at the annual art exhibition at the URC church in Stowmarket. Her landscape of a poppy field was accepted by the Town Council.’ Her remarkable self-portrait is on the right.

Roy, for many years her key worker, describes how her artistic talent stood out: ‘Her ability was always there and, in time, she developed a confidence and style all of her own, enhanced by the transition from working on paper to canvas. She was always happy, choosing whichever subject she wanted to work on, never worried about trying something a little more challenging, applying herself with her usual patience and eye for detail. The results speak for themselves, her legacy, a remaining source of pleasure and amazement, not only for myself but for everyone involved at the time. An inspiration.’

Over 20 years ago a vital new chapter of Catherine’s life opened as she moved to Combs Court. I have become increasingly conscious over recent times of just how much Catherine was loved and valued by everyone at Combs – and also of how much she enriched their lives with her kind, gentle sunshine. When Beryl broke her leg in Cambridge in 2017 it was the ever-helpful and capable Catherine who tidied the hotel room and did the packing – and when we asked her where she wanted to spend the night she made it clear she wanted to return to Combs. So I’d like to close by quoting some moving words from Wendy, who stood close beside her throughout her illness.

‘Catherine was a kind, loving person and her artwork was amazing. She will be a great loss to us all and we will miss her dearly. We are one big family with a hole in our hearts now.’

Beryl requested that one of my songs, ‘Tenderness’ be played at the funeral. Here it is:

It’s slightly scary to see that another year has slipped by, though I’m not sure we will lament the passing of 2019. Here, anyway, are my annual musical musings.

‘Never enough’, which we launched at the end of last year, has been well received. I seem to have been busy playing gigs through the year – the highlight was the inaugural Royston Folk Club Summer Shindig on the August bank holiday weekend, where Matt and Lucinda joined me on violin and viola and we had a lovely welcome from the audience – including some who had travelled from Oxford and Milton Keynes! There is a video of us playing La Fayette live here – all in evocative black and white.

And I have several gigs planned already for next year. I’m particularly pleased that my friends Thursdays Band I have at least three more church concerts to look forward to: on February 16th in Stotfold, near Hitchin; on February 29th in Ashwell, near Roystom (though this one is to be confirmed); and if your church would like such entertainment to help with the restoration fund, do let me know. We really enjoy playing unplugged with the acoustics that churches provide.

Our trip to India and Nepal in April opened the flood gates of my songwriting and, after a barren year, I have eight new songs – several inspired by our experience there and also a new song inspired by my home town of Rochdale – which I’m currently testing out on long-suffering audiences. Rhys and I are starting to turn our attention to reworking some of my older songs for a retrospective album as well so 2020 promises to be busy.

Thankyou for your continued support. And may I wish you Happy Christmas and all the very best for 2020.

Here is the video for La Fayette, taken from my album Never enough. It features Matt Kelly (violin), Lucinda Fudge (viola) and myself at the Royston Folk Club Shindig in August 2019.

I originally began the song on a December early evening in Paris. I had arrived with time to spare for a Eurostar, and spent a few minutes wandering around the always interesting streets close to the Gare du Nord. I noticed someone standing in a doorway on the Rue La Fayette who was to prove the inspiration for the song.

My train was a little delayed, and while the business people were busy with their laptops and mobiles, I was quietly singing the first lines of the song into a microphone.

The remainder of the song emerged from my imagination, albeit under the shadow of Le Pen over France, though it rapidly became equally relevant to the EU referendum in the UK, the election of Trump in the US, and the rise of the right generally around the world.

La Fayette himself was a French aristocrat who commanded troops in the American war of independence before joining the French revolution as commander-in-chief of the National Guard. While a street in Paris is named after him, there is not in practice a Place de La Fayette – however that fitted better with the feel of the song.

You can download the song from my music page.

During our recent stay in Nepal we visited the Peak Everest primary school in the village of Dhital, in the Machhapuchhre Rural Municipality, 16km from Pokhara. The school is set in a stunning location, with the Annapurna range behind it.

Somnath Poudel, the Principal, showed us round the classrooms. The school has eight classes and 120 students. The rooms were small and dark and while the early years had carpets the older children did not. The classroom walls were bare. There was no glass in the windows and in winter it must get cold.

Some classes are taught in English at the request of parents. There are four 45 minute classes in the morning and four in the afternoon. Subjects included social studies, mathematics and Nepali. Somnath’s commitment, passion and sense of mission were striking. He has a clear vision of what he can do to help his community, and the energy and enthusiasm to confront the many difficulties he encounters. Inspirational indeed.

We also met students walking to or from school for books (it was the new year holiday) who said they enjoyed school. Most of the students are from low caste, Dalit or Hill Dalit families – some are orphans living with their relatives. Many students are from low income family backgrounds and cannot afford the necessary things such as stationery materials, clothes etc.

Some teachers lived in the local villages but others in Pokhara – a 2 hour journey, by bus and on foot. After the school we stopped for a while at the bus stop – as local people arrived it became apparent that the bus itself stopped on the road 400 metres below us, and that this was a resting point before or after the steep climb down or down.

It was all a million miles from our own local primary schools in Cambridge – the school was very short of resources like pencils and we thought we would see if we could find some way to support the dedicated people working there. In my subsequent correspondence with the Principal, he explained that the school’s most pressing need is to provide school lunches. He comments that some students arrive at school without lunch, or with junk food, and that this leads to problems of nutrition >and concentration.

We have made an initial contribution to the lunch programme, which the Principal comments has allowed them to buy a cooking stove, gas canisters, and some cooking and eating utensils. We hope to make further contributions ourselves, and possibly in addition by fund-raising and/or a benefit concert. I attach the school’s Lunch program proposal – if you would like to help in some way please message me.

Lunch program proposal

One of the things we most wanted to do during our travels in India and Nepal was to meet and spend time with local people. So when we came across the Community Homestay initiative in Panauti – a small rural town a two-hour bus ride east of Kathmandu – this sounded like an ideal opportunity to stay with a family. We took the local bus which in itself was an experience – I quickly lost count of how many people could squeeze into the small bus, and as we made our way out of the pollution of the city the conductor leant out of the open door to shout out the destinations.

Our Community Homestay hosts were Biju and her two daughters Aayusha and Nirusha. Upon our arrival they made us most welcome with masala tea and a delicious lunch of dal bhat, the staple Nepali meal.

In the late afternoon Aayusha showed us some of the village monuments – Panauti is a historic town with some beautiful temples. She then took us up a nearby hill to look at the Buddhist temple and enjoy the views over the town and the valley where the fields were green with the potato crop.

In the evening Biju showed us how to make potato curry and chapatis, and we looked through photo albums of the daughters’ weddings and of all the guests who had stayed with them.

On our second morning we walked along the path running north through the nearby hills towards Dhulikel. We climbed up to the Shree Sharada Devi Temple, the highest point of the path, where a local man put flower petals in our hair and took us to a viewpoint from where we could see Dhulikel, Banepa, Panauti and Namobuddha.

In the late afternoon Nirusha took us to a local café where they had found a guitar, and asked me to sing a few songs. When we returned home, Nirusha dressed Isabelle in a Nepali sari. We ended the day with a fabulous Newari dinner with 9 different dishes and a glass of home-made rice wine.

Our stay in Panauti with Biju and her daughters, not to mention Grandma and adorable 14-month old Neepun, was very special. There is a world of difference between their home and ours in Cambridge – Biju’s home is very basic with no glass in the windows, a very wet bathroom with cold water, and steep ladder-like stairs. But the welcome they gave us was beyond compare – human warmth and kindness know no boundaries and we were made to feel very much at home. It was a privilege to meet them and our stay was most memorable.

On our last day in Nepal we met Bikal, one of the Community Homestay organisers – he had very kindly brought some glasses we had left in Panauti and asked us for feedback on our stay there. We asked for more detail about how the financial side works – the central office takes 15% of a booking and 20% of the rest goes to the local community. The host receives the rest – around two thirds of the booking fee. Given that our stay there was rather more expensive than the other places we stayed, it was good to know that the hosts would receive a reasonable proportion of this.

Bikal also explained that he had considered going to the US as apparently many educated Nepalis do, but decided he could be more helpful by staying in the country. He spoke inspirationally about Community Homestay, about how it has given a purpose to his life, how it aims to empower the women who act as hosts, and how it can support local communities in more remote areas of Nepal by bringing income from tourists.

We are just back from spending three and a half weeks in India and Nepal and it has been good to experience once more the highs and lows of travelling. In their different ways – and they have been very different – India and Nepal have been exciting, eye opening, challenging and rewarding. We experienced a fair degree of culture shock, though overall much less than I had expected and more than counterbalanced by the many positive experiences.

The warmth and friendliness of the people we met has been outstanding. Apart from our time with our son and his partner – which was of course was a real treat and the initial motivation for our trip – we spent very little time with westerners and a lot with local people who welcomed us into their lives. All our hosts made us feel at home, and in particular Vinita and Pradesh in Delhi and Biju, Aayusha and Nirusha in Panauti, who have become friends. Then there were the friends of friends – Antara and Saurabh in India and Julia in Nepal who gave up their valuable time to show us round, respectively, the dargah of Nizamuddin, the Taj Mahal and the courtyards of Patan.

On top of that we met many very special people, often quite unexpectedly – Baiku and Bai who invited two total strangers to their home in Kathmandu; Julia’s brother who shared his profound knowledge and enthusiasm for Newari culture; Bikal who went out of his way to bring us a pair of glasses we had left in Panauti and who spoke eloquently about the Community Homestay project; the principal of the government school in Bhital who shared his inspirational hopes for education; the poet Pushkar, the sarod player Suresh and the tuk-tuk driver in Agra who commented that if you show people respect you are likely to gain respect in turn. It was a privilege to meet them all.

The architectural and natural beauty of the two countries was breathtaking. The Taj Mahal really was as good as we had hoped – a quite staggering achievement. But then so were the Qutub Minar, the carvings in the royal palace of Patan, the gorgeous gardens of Humuyum’s tomb, and the local treasures of Green Park in Delhi and Panauti.

Then all this fell sharply into perspective when we woke one morning to watch the first rays of the sun fall on the Annapurna mountains. And some of the birdlife has been every bit as
beautiful – the sparkling blue of the verditer flycatcher, the vibrant purple of the delightful sunbirds or the brilliant red of the long-tailed minavets.

The food was excellent, and we have never been anywhere before that was as easy for vegetarians. All our hosts provided local breakfasts – the aloo parathas in Delhi were particularly special – and several offered delicious home cooking in the evening as well – Biju went as far as to teach us how to cook potato curry and chapatis. When that was not available good restaurants were not far away, notably in New Delhi and Pokhara.

Musically our trip was rewarding also. On our first evening Antara took us to hear Sufi music in the dargah (shrine) of Nizamuddin. The music was magical. A couple of days later in the Sikh temple Sis Ganj in Old Delhi, we sat again enthralled by sacred music. I was asked to sing as well, firstly by our hosts in Delhi, and Panauti. And in Patan we joined sarod player Suresh Raj Bajracharya, who was practising the Sarod in Julia’s gallery, with his student, a former living goddess. They played ragas and I sang Rainbow – I have never sung to a divinity before!

I could go on – about the colours, the sounds, the packed streets, the contrasts and the surprises – but I’ll spare you all that, for now at least. Our travels seem to have had a positive impact on my creativity – I am at long last emerging from a long period of songwriting drought and a new song is working its way into the light. Thankyou, India and Nepal.

Here is Suresh playing the Sarod: