Jim Ghedi is out on the road with his full band in October 2022 and has also just published a small collection of poems & songs titled A Sprig of Yarrow as part of the Ration Books Series (more on below).
Last year, Jim released an unforgettable album titled ‘In the Furrows of Common Place‘ and while it featured in my Top 100 albums of 2021, it easily makes my Top 10 List because it resonated with me at a level I can’t recall any other album doing so.
It’s an album that sounds both contemporary and rooted in tradition – he makes the old words of John Clare sound relevant, direct and personal and his own songs feel like they are hewn from the soil. His empathy and angst can be stilling or a stirring turbulent vortex of emotion. He weaves social politics alongside nature, the contrast of which is both raw and moving.
Ah Cud Hew
One of the most striking songs on the album was his cover of Ed Pickford’s Ah Cud Hew.
Jim Ghedi on Ah Cud Hew:
Ah Cud Hew is a song written by North East folk singer & songwriter Ed Pickford, a song from the narrative of an ex-miner suffering the effects of coal disease, a reflection of his working life, his family & the community he was connected to.
I first heard Ed’s version of the song on a folk compilation given to me a few years back. I remember from the opening line it completely flawed me, I had it on repeat for days and couldn’t shake it off, mesmerised by Ed’s voice and his ability with song, to tell a story with such humanity and lyrical imagery.
Around this time, I was doing research into the history of social injustice, the Miners’ strike and more specifically the ‘Battle of Orgreave’. Watching Yvette Vanson’s powerful documentary ‘The Battle for Orgreave’ and finding a huge resource over on the ‘Orgreave truth and justice campaign’ website (https://otjc.org.uk/). Somehow Ed’s song really hit a nerve and correlated with themes I was becoming drawn towards, the starting point of political discourse into the breaking down of communities, state and police brutality and a further control and privatisation over the working classes. But the beauty of Ed’s song is he displays this through the personal perspective and the individual’s narrative connecting the listener by the raw emotion of it.
The Estate
Those feelings that Jim talks of so passionately will touch many, especially those raised in working-class communities which have since become marginalised, fragmented and isolated. My father was from a Scottish coal mining community and when he was old enough it was a broken community and unemployment that led him south, eventually working in Ford of Dagenham where he was also a union steward during the 1978 strike.
In the years that followed, the unions collective bargaining power was gradually eroded by Thatcher who also set about selling off state housing. That set the ball rolling for mounting inequality, greedy landlords and the ever-widening poverty gap we live with today. As if that wasn’t enough, the media have continued to exploit those communities, reinforcing that stigmatism against those in poverty.
Last year, Ghedi collaborated with photographer Laura Merrill on The Estate, a project which was shown during the Sensoria Festival. While maybe not initially intended as a project to highlight poverty, isolation and marginalisation, for me, it did. Despite the absence of people in Merrill’s photographs (it was made during Covid) that stillness, accentuated here by the music and field recordings makes a powerful impression. The viewer is guided through an exploration of green spaces within four council and social housing estates in Sheffield: Gleadless Valley, Herdings Park, Jordanthorpe, and Stannington.
A Sprig of Yarrow
Most recently, Jim Ghedi published ‘A Sprig of Yarrow’, a small pocket-sized book featuring a collection of his poems & songs. The book is part of a series called Ration Books, the concept of which is simple:
“Ration Books is born out of a love of routine and simplicity.
Conceiving an idea and acting upon it – quickly.
Good reading should be rationed.
The reason for reading is rational.
Ration Books produce small books to be read in short
sittings and they fit into haversack pockets.
Ration Books are affordable, disposable,
swappable, collectable, and always readable…”
Ration Books describe Jim’s ‘A Sprig of YArrow’:
Worlds ancient and modern collide in this collection of poems & songs. Both personal and political, and shot through with a sense of loss and class war anger, Ghedi guides us down rural pathways and through dark bogs in a debut teeming with life.
Below is an extract from Jim’s poem ‘Terrace Row’.
Terrace Row (an extract)
The fields line up beside my housing estate.
Terrace row, 80s red brick,
labelled ‘affordable housing’
by some rich prick shitnose under bastard Thatcher.
You could still hear the horses charging,
the dogs barking and the men screaming.
Now they sit in the miner’s welfare effing and bleeding,
there’s nothingness here
just barren landscapes and thawed brambles
limbs which stagger along old forgotten paths.
The hills once cradled their visions,
now grown men lay broken
amongst the borne fruits of bitter memory.
The buzzards cry, hovering high above fields when ploughed
and the owls screech at night from woodland oak,
this little haven now a burden, they can barely cope
worn down sunken bones, guttered howls, starved of need,
from dusk till dawn when occupation leads
and all that remains is emptiness
when time becomes free…
Order A Sprig of Yarrow and other Ration Books here.
Jim Ghedi is also featured in our latest Folk Show here.
Order Jim’s albums via Bandcamp: https://jimghedi.bandcamp.com/
Tour Dates
OCT 5 WED – Peggy’s Skylight, Nottingham
OCT 8 SAT – The Band Room, North Yorkshire
OCT 9 SUN – Cumberland Arms, Byker Bank, Newcastle Upon Tyne
OCT 10 MON – Broadcast, Glasgow
OCT 12 WED – The New Adelphi Club, Hull
OCT 13 THU – HOME, Manchester
OCT 15 SAT – Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot
OCT 17 MON – Prince Albert, Brighton
OCT 18 TUE – The Old Church Stoke Newington, London
OCT 19 WED – Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
OCT 20 THU – Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
OCT 21 FRI – Future Yard CIC, Birkenhead
Ticket Links and more details here: http://www.jimghedi.com/tour