Contact details

Reciprocal links and genuine feedback

I have received numerous requests for reciprocal links (from and to my English web site). I have to turn them down politely, or else my site would be spoilt by having too many links to commercial enterprises which I could not possibly vet. I welcome genuine feedback from people interested in English language learning &/or teaching.

What's new on this site?---------Do your students have problems with the sound / əʊ / as in "don't go!"?

I've written a new song - The No No Song - for one of my dinner guests, but it could also be very useful for English language learners (e.g. with French language backgrounds) to practise the sound / əʊ / as in "don't go!". Get your students to sing it with me and see what they think. If people like the song, I might be motivated to write some more pronunciation songs for other dinner guests who also need teaching good party manners! If The No No Song would also make you go, then I shall abandon my song-writing career.

Journeyman - an autobiography by Ewan MacColl

Ewan was responsible for writing political theatre sketches, great love songs such as The First Time I Ever saw Your Face and vividly descriptive songs such as Dirty Old Town, The Moving On Song and The Manchester Rambler. He was the father of another great singer/songwriter, the late Kirsty MacColl, who died tragically when a recklessly driven speedboat collided with her in a underwater-diving school in Mexico.

I attended the memorial concert in Salford on 27th October 2009 to mark the 20th anniversary of the actor/playwright/folk singer/songwriter, Ewan MacColl.

Ewan MacColl and Joan Littlewood (Ewan's first wife) were co-founders on Theatre Workshop, one of the most influential Theatre Companies in the 20th century. Ewan left the theatre company in the early 1950s when married to his second wife, Jean Newlove, choreographer and movement teacher and mother of Hamish and the late Kirsty MacColl. He then took up with his third wife, Peggy Seeger, and together they played an integral part in the UK folk music revival, which had its roots in blues, skiffle and traditional English and Scottish ballads.

I often went to see Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger in the heyday of the Singers Club, a famous London folk club which continued from the mid-1950s to the early 1990s (a couple of years after Ewan's death).

A second purpose of the Salford concert was to launch the re-publication of Ewan's autobiography Journeyman, which I have read 7 or 8 times. The book is a wonderful read. Click here or see below for book description.

Ted---------(November 2009)

JOURNEYMAN - an autobiography by Ewan MacColl
published 1st October 2009

This new edition of Journeyman, Ewan MacColl's vivid and entertaining autobiography, has been re-edited from the original manuscript, and includes a new introduction by Peggy Seeger, for whom he wrote the unforgettable 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face'. Footnotes have also been added.

This fascinating account of the life of the singer, songwriter, actor, playwright and broadcaster begins with the story of a working class Manchester childhood, which had a profound influence on his songwriting, inspiring, for example, 'Dirty Old Town' (1949). The book traces the founding of Theatre Workshop, one of Britain's most influential twentieth-century theatre companies, from MacColl's involvement in Salford, his participation in Agitprop during the mass unemployment of the 1930s, the formation of Theatre Union in 1936, and the founding of Theatre Workshop by Joan Littlewood and MacColl after VE Day in 1945. It goes on to describe the life of Theatre Workshop as a touring company with MacColl as its main playwright, followed by MacColl's gradual 'break with theatre' and his work on the Radio Ballads (1957-1964), an important landmark in the history of radio documentary.

Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger were among the main leaders of the UK folksong revival. Journeyman documents their struggle from the mid 1950s to secure the integrity of that revival as the popular media appropriated and re-created traditional music for commercial gain.

An entertaining and thought-provoking slice of British history, it will appeal to those interested in the histories of folk music, theatre, radio, left-wing politics and the Manchester area.

Contents
List of illustrations
Introduction by Peggy Seeger
Acknowledgement
Part One
1. Early days and Hogmanay
2. One in three million
3. Front doors and back entries
4. Unnatural habitat
5. Lodgers and friends
6. The gang
7. The tangenital mind
8. Happy days?
9. Mother, Meg and May
10. Limbo
11. On the broo
12. Big city, big Geordie
13. Politics, prurience and fresh air
14. New comrades
15. Agitprop
16. Theatre of action
17. Living in London and dreaming of Moscow
18. Megaphones to microphones
Part Two
19. Theatre Workshop
20. On the road
21. Enter Alan Lomax
22. Into the Folk revival
23. Radio ballads
24. singing and song-writing
25. The joy of living
26. Time steals on and steals
Epilogue
Footnotes
Index