Cornwall Songwriters, The Cry of Tin (Lyngham House Music, 2000)
Legend insists that Cornwall was trading its tin with the Phoenicians before the Romans ever came to Britain's shores. In 1998, South Crofty, the last tin mine in Europe, was closed. In 2002, a group of songwriters living in Cornwall collaborated on this CD. Tin mining in Cornwall meant "deep rock mining." I'd heard the expression but didn't fully appreciate what it meant until I saw an illustration in the book Cornwall forever! - Kernow bys vyken! (Truran 2000). How deep is "deep?" Well, in the case of the Dolcoath mine it meant a depth more than double the height of the Empire State building.
Not a particularly easy occupation, then, and you'd be forgiven for expecting a collection of rather dirgy songs about hardship, struggle, death and terrible accidents. The reality of this CD is something far more artistically satisfying, and demonstrates a remarkable range of style, subject matter and emotion across its twenty-one tracks. The eponymous songwriters are Roger Bryant, Jon Heslop (guitar), John Wallace (guitar), Pete Berryman (guitar), Tony Franklin (piano, mandolin), Mike O‚Connor (fiddle, concertina), Miranda Truscott (percussion) and Tony Truscott (guitar, flute, percussion). Each song is led by its writer, and all join the choruses.
Somehow this disparate group of individuals have managed to channel two thousand years worth of "source material" into a remarkably cohesive piece of work. There are all kinds of little paths to follow through this CD, the matter of spirituality being a good example. Early on we get Jon Heslop's "The Green Man"(splendid title!), which beautifully evokes Cornwall's Celtic pagan origins. Then there's Tony Truscott's humorous "A Didjan for Bucca," full of local superstitions, and folklore (and dialect). Towards the end, it's the turn of Roger Bryant's "The Miner's Anthem," which could have come straight from some grand Methodist revival meeting in the days when John Wesley so comprehensively gripped the imagination of the Cornish.
It's this identification with the beliefs, emotions and day to day experiences of the people who worked at this trade that makes this CD such an outstanding achievement. There have been quite a few songs about the iniquities of child labour written in the past, but very few as powerfully emotive as Miranda Truscott's "I Feel Fine." The "youthful bravado" of the song is doubled by the fact that Miranda wrote and recorded this song at fourteen years of age. There are plenty of other fine songs here, with Mike O‚Connor's "Shining down on Sennen" being a particularly fine example. This one's written from the point of view of an emigrant miner, earning a good living in Australia, but longing for his homeland: during the 19th century whole communities of exiled Cornish sprang up in Mexico, Australia, South Africa, India and North and South America.
This CD is "a good seller" in Cornwall (needless to say), but deserves to be bought and heard by a much wider audience. Certainly, anyone who admires "The Radio Ballads"(produced by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger & Charles Parker) will enjoy this CD immensely. This CD is a lasting testament to the talent and creativity of these Cornwall songwriters, and my hat goes off to all involved in the project, including the St Austell branch of the Transport & General Workers Union, whose sponsorship facilitated its production.
The Cry of Tin reaffirms my belief in the wise words of Michelle Shocked: "Music's like politics, it's too important to leave to the professionals." The professionals and politicians may have killed off the mining industry in Cornwall, but the courage, humour, dedication and defiance of the Cornish mining people live on. Here's the proof, join in the choruses, Kernow bys vyken!
