Tank Park Salute...

It’s hard to imagine being reduced to tears by a Billy Bragg song - his voice can sometimes grate on the ears - until you hear Tank Park Salute. He was 18 when his father died, and this song is his response; it may strike a chord with anyone who has a parent, or has had a parent, or is a parent.

A man who lost his little girl to childhood cancer, aged five, found particular comfort in the song. He wrote to the organisers of the Glastonbury Festival, in the hope that Billy Bragg might play it when he appeared in a Sunday evening spot at the festival. On the Sunday morning he took a call on his mobile, from Mr William Bragg himself, to say he would be glad to perform the song. He only changed one word, but it made all the difference (and a grateful, grieving father wrote a blog about it).

Some photographs of a summer’s day,

A little GIRL’S lifetime away

Is all I’ve left of everything we’ve done.


A church on a hill: St Andrew's, Weaverthorpe, in North Yorkshire...