A man by the name of Peter Cox has just written a book about the making of the "Radio Ballads". It's a remarkable book and an incredible labour of love:

Take a communist playwright, actor, singer and songwriter and introduce him to a young American musician and singer half his age. They fall in love. Add an ex-submarine commander with an eccentric view of radio as Art. Send them with the new mobile tape recorder to railway yards, onto fishing vessels, down coal mines, in search of gypsy encampments. Now read about the most compelling series of radio programmes ever made.

So where did the inspiration come from? The following is an extract from a recent interview with Peter:

The inspiration came from meeting Peggy Seeger after a London concert two years ago, at the house of a friend with whom she was staying. Over hot-buttered toast at midnight I asked her about the Radio Ballads, which had fascinated me since I first heard them (only ten years earlier, I'm obliged to admit... I came to folk music late, but better than never). At the time I was casting about for a subject for my second book, and after two hours of animated conversation I knew I had it. It's a subject of only minority interest (breaking all the rules about a 'target' readership, so varied are its topics) but that didn't bother me. I had a well-positioned deadline (The Ballad of John Axon's 50th anniversary was two years out, this July 2). But above all, as I soon realised, it was a subject around which I could write mini-biographies of three extraordinarily different and talented people. As I say in the launch presentations I give, if you'd looked at where they each were in December 1940 you'd say that the chances of their ever meeting, let alone achieving what they did, were a zillion to one. One communist playwright and actor, about to walk out of Derby barracks and National Service till the end of the war, one callow lieutenant in a sub somewhere under the North Sea, and one five-year old in the USA... they moved around a lot playing every instrument she could find, when she wasn't tearing around the woods on her bike.

A few days later Peggy gave me her list of phone numbers, and that tapped me in to the luxuriant old folkie grapevine. A chance encounter with Jimmie McGregor in Muswell Hill (and yes, he's living in Glasgow) kicked me off. He was as keen to reminisce as all the others I subsequently found. In fact I managed to speak to every singer, musician and radio engineer who took part in the programmes who was still alive. One good thing about the decision to put detailed footnotes on the website is that I can correct that and any other errors I find.

What was fascinating, too, was the challenge of weaving together personal anecdotes - above all I wanted to tell their stories - with the narrative line that the Parker (especially) and MacColl/Seeger archives gave me. As you'd imagine, it's a minefield of differing and sometimes competing memories, too (notably Lloyd and MacColl) which I had to try to thread my way through. But the excuse to speak to some wonderful people was tremendous, especially since I wasn't there in those smoky old folk venues of the late Fifties and Sixties. In the end, I guess, the book will be judged on whether the fact that I'm (necessarily) detached makes up for the fact that I wasn't there at the time.

Visit the website to view samples of the book's chapters. Go and treat yourself and buy a copy, you won't regret it!

Site: http://www.setintosong.co.uk/