fR314 PAGES 48-49 6/7/09 14:26 Page 1
f48
Britain Retold
Will Hodgkinson’s book The Ballad Of Britain recounts a
field recording trip looking for the soul of the nation.
Here’s an excerpt where he meets the wandering Ed, Will
& Ginger, and a natter with Ian Anderson about it all.
T
he Astra was getting even more factories on the edge of the capital gave Ed, Will and Ginger were sitting in the
decrepit. Along with the many way to oast houses, those cylindrical grain- thick smoke of a fire, heating a kettle for
bumps and scrapes that NJ storing buildings so redolent of Kent, and tea. With their thin, young men’s beards,
inflicted on the car as punish- muddy, uneven lanes and old men on bicy- layers of clothing in various shades of
ment for its ugliness and gener- cles. We passed village greens holding war green, leaves in their hair and boots so
al lack of chic, not to mention the black memorials where maypoles once stood. heavily used they were moulded into the
panel giving it a Frankenstein’s monster We arrived at the apple orchard an hour shape of their feet, they looked like a dis-
aspect, it now demanded a complex after dropping the children off at their placed sector of Robin Hood’s merry men.
manoeuvre for the most basic mainte- school in Peckham. I wondered how long
“We’d like to do John Barleycorn,”
nance. The handle to open the bonnet had London to Faversham would take by
said Will, the tallest of the three, when I
snapped off and the spring releasing it foot… about a week, I supposed.
asked them which song they would have
had rusted into paralysis, meaning the
A large willow tree was swaying in the to represent them. Telling the story of
only way to open the bonnet was for one
breeze, as was a line of tall daisies. The how barley is turned into beer and whisky,
person to clamber down by the brake and
apple blossom had budded towards fruit, the song imagines John Barleycorn as a
clutch pedals and yank a cable with a pair
too early yet to pick. There was a rust-red heroic little character who goes through
of pliers while someone else gave the cen-
double-decker bus at the front of the all kinds of horrific events in his journey
tre of the bonnet a hearty kick. The Astra
orchard, and at the back were three old from cereal crop to alcoholic brew. It also
had not discovered modern audio technol-
vans that had been transformed into has elements of sacrifice: John Barleycorn
ogy either. It only had a cassette deck by
homes, one each for Ed, Will and Ginger. is the vegetable king that must die for the
way of in-car entertainment, and we only
Out of objects they had found the three harvest. It was suitable for the land we
had one tape: a compilation of British folk
young men had turned these stationary, were in, where hops and barley are the
music made by a friend as an accompani-
former industrial-purpose automobiles agricultural mainstays and beer takes on
ment to the field-recording adventure.
into dingle-dell dwellings. One had a little an almost sacred importance.
It was a warm summer Wednesday round window cut into its side. Another
“We find John Barleycorn pertinent to
when NJ and I took the A2 that runs out of had a prehistoric cast-iron stove with a
Britain because it offers a seamless blend of
the bleakly expanding suburbs of south- zigzag chimney rising up out of the roof.
the pagan myth of the recurring king with
east London towards an apple orchard at All were furnished with chairs and stools
the single, resurrected Christ figure,” said
the back of a house down a watercolour- made of driftwood, little stacks of greasy
Will with earnest politeness. “It’s usually
pretty country lane in Kent. The pure- paperback cookbooks, and frayed Moroc-
taken as a pagan ale celebration, but the
voiced strains of Anne Briggs’s version of can rugs that might once have belonged
early Christians promoted the song too.”
the old seduce-them-and-leave-them tune to smart family homes. Nothing matched
Blackwaterside leaked out of the speakers. and everything worked towards a feeling
Wastelands of dilapidated buildings and of welcome and a certain Gypsy romance.
Ed, Will & Ginger
I
held the Zoom at chest height, put
on the headphones, and pressed
record. The little digital lines jumped
up and down. The three young men
harmonised well, a result of spend-
ing the better part of three years on the
road together, and the recording sounded
good with the crackle of the fire and the
occasional squawk of a goose that was
wandering about rather busily nearby
accompanying the voices. Then they sang
a tune called Country Life with lusty
enthusiasm and rallying hand movements
until Ginger collapsed into a coughing fit
– an occupational hazard, I couldn’t help
but suspect, of the outdoor life. As we sat
around by the fire and drank tea they told
me about how they had ended up on this
strange path. “We did the old Pilgrim’s
Way walk from Winchester to Canterbury
about three years ago, just to see if we
could do it,” Will began. “That was a bit
of a stroll, only lasting for three weeks.
We got hideously lost and wet and it all
went wrong.”
“We wanted to visit Thomas Becket’s
tomb at Canterbury Cathedral, but we got
turned away because there was a concert
going on,” said Ginger. “Can you believe
it? We were the only people there who
had actually done the pilgrimage and they
wouldn’t let us in.”
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100