Musicians tell moving story of the forced child migrants

A collective of brilliant and respected musicians and singers are taking to the road to tell the moving story of Britain’s forced child migrants.

The Ballards of Child Migration show features award-winning folk artists: John McCusker, Michael McGoldrick, Boo Hewerdine, O’Hooley & Tidow, Chris While, Julie Matthews, John Doyle, Jez Lowe, Andy Seward and Andy Cutting.

This moving piece of work will be narrated by Barbara Dickson.

The concert, presented as a series of songs, narration, slides, audio and film clips, premiered at last year’s Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, where it was described as “without doubt the most memorable concert of the festival”.

The songs in the concert were recently heard as part of a major BBC Radio 2 dramatisation of Michael Morpurgo’s book Alone on a Wide Wide Sea, which deals with the same subject. The radio drama, including the music, starred Toby Jones and Jason Donovan and reached an estimated audience of six million listeners.

Forced child migration is a little known and dark part of the history of Britain. More than 100,000 children from Britain were sent overseas (to places including Australia and Canada) with the promise of finding a better life. Some did find the happy lives they longed for; many others found only hardship, abuse and loneliness.

The Ballads of Child Migration is a tribute to those children, some of whom were sent abroad as recently as 1970.

After each concert there will be a short question and answer session where members of the audience can ask questions of the performers and other experts about child migration.

The concert features a specially commissioned collection of 14 songs by leading British folk musicians..

INFO: The show is at the Cambridge Corn Exchange on November 14.

Tickets £25.50 and available from the box office on 01223 357851 or online: www.cambridgelivetrust.co.uk.