BBC Radio 2's 21st Century Folk returns with railway tales including Bradford couple's by Barnsley's Kate Rusby
BBC Radio 2 event 21st Century Folk is back with more powerful stories, but this time the focus is on railways. Presenter Mark Radcliffe talks to John Blow.
Songwriting and railways have always had a close relationship, though perhaps most recognisably in the USA. “That is a really Romantic folk tradition in the States, stitched into music and films and stories and books. I think because of the huge distances it’s a more poetic, widescreen sort of experience than going from Bridlington to Filey or something,” says radio presenter Mark Radcliffe.
For many, there is a railway nostalgia in the UK, particularly going back to the steam era, and many powerful stories to be told in the present day.
So as 21st Century Folk today returns to BBC Radio 2 for a third year, five folk acts have composed a song about people whose lives have been influenced in some way by trains. It all coincides with Railway 200, celebrating the bicentenary of train travel in the UK after the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened on September 27, 1825.
The artists taking part this year are Richard Thompson, Kate Rusby, Findlay Napier, Chris While and Julie Matthews, and Bill Ryder-Jones, and the channel will mark the occasion with programming across Radio 2’s Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe (Wednesday, 9-10pm), and The Jeremy Vine Show (weekdays, noon-2pm). Vine will also broadcast live from The Greatest Gathering, a festival to celebrate the past, present and future of rail travel, at Alstom in Derby.
The concept is “a wholly noble endeavour,” says Radcliffe, highlighting “stories that people have experienced in their lives that don't make the news unless there's some kind of tragedy or a disaster or scandal. It’s a really important function of folk music to tell stories of lives lived currently, as well as historically, and so I think that that's a good part of it. I think it also brings folk music to the mainstream because it gets on Radio 2 during the daytime, throughout the week,” he says.
“It produces some songs and some stories that are really memorable.”
Take the story of Charlotte and David Lay, who live near Bradford, West Yorkshire. In 2019, Charlotte was beside a railway track intending to take her own life when David, a train driver, got out of his cab and spoke to her until she felt able to board. She later contacted him to say thank you, they started dating and are now married with children.
Their singer-songwriter is Kate Rusby, from Barnsley in South Yorkshire, one of the most successful folk artists of her generation, who is performing the track alongside her husband, the Northern Irish musician Damien O’Kane.
“That is an amazing story,” says Radcliffe. “It’s like a film really. It’s almost like a film you wouldn’t believe if you heard the story. It’s an extraordinary story which involves suicidal thoughts and big acts of kindness and it’s a happy ending, too, which is great. I thought that was really an astonishing thing.”
He adds: “Kate’s a phenomenon. I’ve known her for many years, we’re friends, and her voice has retained its absolute purity.”
Then there is Richard Thompson, the virtuoso guitarist who, with Fairport Convention, pioneered a new dimension of folk in the 1960s, going on to have an enduring solo career which is still going strong.
“Richard Thompson, with a couple of mates, more or less invented the sound of British folk rock,” says Radcliffe. “He’s still an extraordinary guitarist. Legend is overused but not in his case and certainly in the folk world. He’s one of the giants and there aren’t that many left.”
Getting him involved was “a real coup,” says Radcliffe, and Thompson – also a vocalist – was tasked with writing a song about Siggy Cragwell, who was part of the Windrush generation. The 85-year-old, who lives in Hampstead, London, came to the UK from Barbados in 1962, becoming a railway worker the day he arrived. He still loves his shift in customer services at Elstree & Borehamwood station and previously played cricket for the England over-70s – a sport for which Thompson shares an affection.
“They’ve been spending most of their time, as I understand it, talking about cricket,” says Radcliffe.
Other stories told throughout the week are of a Lancashire accountant, Joanne Crompton, who volunteers on steam locomotives at the Llangollen Railway in Wales in her spare time; Tom Yeo, who was found as a two-week old baby in the ladies’ waiting room of Reading railway station in 1965; and Ken Davies, an Alstom employee who had a locomotive named in his honour to mark 50 years of service.
The show is partly inspired by the classic BBC Radio Ballads created by Charles Parker, Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger (the latter of whom Radcliffe interviews on his Wednesday show) during the late 1950s – programmes which described the lives of ordinary people through their own words and original songs. The Radio Ballads format was revived by Radio 2 during the 2000s and then 21st Century Folk came in 2023, initially putting the focus on five people who lived and worked in the North-East of England.
Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2, said: “I’m delighted that today our 21st Century Folk project returns for its third chapter. Sincere thanks to the listeners, whose stories are so inspirational and unique, and the singer-songwriters who have turned these tales into truly moving music.”
Hear the songs and their stories in 21st Century Folk 2025 on BBC Sounds, and watch performances at bbc.co.uk/folk. Charlotte and David’s story can be heard on Jeremy Vine’s BBC Radio 2 show (12-2pm) on Thursday.