Song for Jim

By Mary Ann Ephgrave

See the lyrics here

Fugue from Contagion

By Fabian Sorrell

See the score here

 Thinking of Lorna

By Carol Jason

The Spectral City

By Robert Ely

See the score here

An Old Pair of Boots

By John Hawson

Elly May Flower and the Pilgrims

By Howard S Johnson

First Light

By Gwen Williamson

See the score here

Close to Extinction

By Guy Richardson

See the score here

Mary Ann Ephgrave

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in a quirky garden flat in Kilburn, north west London - where I’ve lived for over 40 years with Jim, until he departed this dimension 3 years ago. After leaving home in South Africa in the early 60s I had 55 addresses in various parts of Canada, USA, Australia and finally London.

I studied piano at school in South Africa with a teacher who beat my hands every time I hit a wrong note leaving me permanently unable to perform. At 50 I gave up smoking and simultaneously began what I can only describe as channeling music. Being unable to perform led me to the Royal College of Music in search of a student who would work with me. Along came the brilliant Kevin Farrell - these days half of the extraordinary musical partnership - Worbey and Farrell. Kevin enabled me to write several children’s musicals that were produced at schools in London.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

Having helped a couple of friends enter their short stories, I thought, ‘I could do that!’. 

What inspired your work?

‘Song for Jim’ was inspired by my darling husband.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

I thrive on solitude, peace, stillness. Lockdown has been a gift.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

A hip replacement! Reconnecting with and hugging my vast stepfamily and dear friends.

Fabian Sorrell

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in York, with my wife and son, and my daughter and grandchildren nearby. I was born in Toulouse and grew up in West Sussex.  I am a retired lecturer in ethnomusicology (not composition!) and have put infinitely more words on paper than notes on staves.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

The whole idea was excitingly original and hugely inspiring, and of course I needed something to do; dabbling in composition makes a change from endless word-spinning!

What inspired your work?

I had long ago thought of (but no more than that) a fugue that gradually used (‘infected’) every note on the keyboard. Covid and the King Lear Prizes provided the perfect inspiration to focus the idea and bring it to fruition.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

Working outdoors as much as possible, so gardening, building and dismantling sheds (not the same ones!) and so on, plus the occasional cycle ride and watching TV when all aforementioned activities have ceased.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

Hugging everyone who would welcome it. Feeling more confident about making trips, even within England but certainly abroad, which I have been avoiding so far.

Carol Jason

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in Manchester. In my younger life I was absorbed with music of every genre, learning piano as a child, guitar in my teens & bass guitar which I adore. I sang folk and jazz songs taking every opportunity to perform. Never considering myself as a composer I've only written a handful of tunes.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

The King Lear Competition was mentioned on Facebook and my sister encouraged me to enter.

What inspired your work?

Lorna, a physical education teacher, inspired young dancers to improvise moving creatively. She asked me to compose piano music and this piece evolved as I watched the dancers expressing themselves. Tragically Lorna lost her battle with cancer. Originally entitled “Thinking”  the work is now dedicated to Lorna's memory.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

Teaching on Zoom; playing the piano for virtual choir rehearsals; playing my bass guitar for remote recordings with Silhouette 60s Band; practising my ukulele; learning how to make chicken soup; walking on local Kersal Moor and exercising with pilates!

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

Visiting my daughter & family in Montreal. Hugging my sister who encouraged me to enter the King Lear Competition. Singing for real with my choir. Playing my bass guitar with a Big Band. Joining a ukulele orchestra. Teaching my pupils face to face.

Robert Ely

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I was born in Lewisham on the 28th December 1949, I moved to Leicester in the mid 1950’s and went to school at City of Leicester Boys Grammar School.

I joined the army as a musician in 1966 and worked my way up to Bandmaster (The Parachute Regiment) 1979-1986) before leaving unexpectedly and spent the next few years co-founding ‘Rank Outsiders’ which eventually led to LGBT people being able to serve their country without prejudice.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I entered the King Lear Prize Competition because most arts competitions tend to be aimed at younger people – and I felt I had something worth offering too.

What inspired your work?

“The Spectral City” was partially inspired by the Covid pandemic – the ghostly streets of a once busy metropolitan city.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

I am currently involved in writing the music for a significant number of Chamber Operas along with my librettist Peter Scott-Presland – the project is called “A Gay Century”.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

After the lockdown I’m hoping to continue expanding my musical portfolio – and have a holiday!

John Hawson

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in Bowness on Windermere, Cumbria, where I and my wife have been since 1982. I qualified as a doctor in 1972, and, after working as a doctor in New Zealand, and in Germany, also in Newfoundland, I came to be a GP here in Windermere.

I developed a liking for a guitar when I was about 15 and wrote several songs as a teenager and in my twenties.  This was followed by really quite a busy career as a GP, but I enjoyed playing my guitar quite often.  Climbing mountains was another pursuit. Painting too.

After I retired from my practice I continued writing songs and singing them, something which can be frustrating and satisfying in equal measures because there are popular songs which everyone knows and if you perform these in a local pub everybody joins in heartily, but an unknown song sung by an unknown singer can often elicit blank looks and little interest, though when a listener comes up to say “I enjoyed that song” it makes it all worthwhile.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I entered the King Lear competition because I got an email from a friend, Sean Hunt, who also writes songs and lives hereabouts, and he told me about it.

What inspired your work?

The song “An Old Pair Of Boots” is about my father-in-law (now deceased) Herbert White who served in the Navy in World War II as a teenager and he became a postman at the end of the War.  That was up in Lairg, Sutherland.  He and Mairi his wife lived in Lairg for about 16 years before moving to Aberdeen with their two children Anne (my wife), and Fred.  

The postman in Lairg had a lot of cycling to do and was given a bike, probably a Raleigh all-steel one with no gears, and a satchel for the letters, then was sent on his way daily come wind rain or snow to deliver mail to folk in farms and places miles away.  Because of the cold and wet weather and the terrible snow in winters, Herbert found he nearly froze to death on more than one occasion, so he bought a pair of black leather boots. These boots lasted because he always liked to clean and polish all his possessions!  

In Aberdeen he no longer rode bikes for the Post Office but the boots were used for gardening.  Digging potatoes was what he was good at! The years passed and after my mother-in-law Mairi died, Herbert was on his own in Aberdeen. Annie (my wife) went up there to see how he was and one day she came across an old pair of black leather boots beneath the stairs.

The story emerged: postman, bicycling, winter snows, long arduous journeys, but Herbert had loved that part of his life, no doubt about that. Well, when Annie came home the song was needing to be ‘born’ as it were, because I found it such a lovely tale, and the ‘no airs and graces’ was Herbert through and through.

Herbert died towards the end of 2017......but the song lives on! The boots, by the way, are here at home with us.  Surprisingly large they are, for Herbert was quite small.  They are now 73 years old!  Herbert was 93 when he died and he bought them in 1947 I believe.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

In Lockdown just about the first thing I did was dig a vegetable patch. That was hard work because the ground is terribly stony. And I had to fence it off effectively against the deer which come though our garden daily, and rabbits too.   The vegetables afford me work and it’s rather fun to grow food then eat it!  But it would not keep us alive because it’s a small area and there’s fierce competition with slugs and caterpillars.  

We are lucky to have a nice garden half of which is now wooded since I started planting trees about 35 years ago and they are now a joy to be amongst.

I’ve also kept up ‘Zoom’ acquaintance with five other songwriters I know who live in South Lakes.  We each record a song each week if we can, and then we sing it at each other and tell each other how good it is!  I’ve never properly mastered the art of recording but I am getting better at it, I think. I use a Tascam eight-track recording machine whose instruction manual was so big and heavy that frankly I hadn’t the nerve to begin using it for a year year after I’d bought it, which was about 12 years ago.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

Lockdown appears to be a process which may well come and go either in various parts of the country, or else nationally.  It all seems to depend on this “R” number, which in turn seems to depend on how well-behaved everybody is.  When we have an effective vaccine I guess everybody will be able to get back to normal, but until then it looks like we have to keep our distance, and that is an awful problem for those who earn their living by performing and singing to live audiences.  For myself, I may perform in an amateur way (singing at the Mortal Man Hotel, Troutbeck, Tuesday nights along with others who come) but I’ve not been doing such outings for 7 months now, and for me it is not my livelihood.  

But if all goes well and we get ‘released’ then I shall hug and squeeze our two grandchildren Jude and Mairi who presently, if they visit here, are respectful of social distancing, which is very good, isn’t it, but at the same time I wish it were not so.  That’s life at the moment! I may also go to a folk music festival, and pop round to visit others,  and those are things that have been put on hold at present too.

Howard S Johnson

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I was born in the land of Ivanhoe & Robin Hood in the shadow of South Yorkshire’s Conisbrough Castle. I now live a few miles away in Sprotbrough a village not far from where two of Elly May Flower’s Pilgrim Fathers (William’s Brewster and Bradford) were born.

I’ve been playing in bands since the mid 1960’s & 50 years on I’m still gigging at folk & country nights and reliving my youth with rock n roll band  “The Geriatrics”.  After first becoming a science teacher I escaped to spend the next 40 years as a media producer.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

I saw Lockdown as my chance to reboot and reprioritise. I had countless song & story ideas but never had the time to complete and record them. When I heard Gyles Brandreth describe the competition I immediately thought this is for me.

What inspired your work?

I maintain the roots of the USA were planted in Yorkshire & Lincolnshire soil. I once shared this with country star George Hamilton IV and he challenged me to write a song about it. Years later when the Mayflower 400th Anniversary coincided with Lockdown & King Lear the song was born.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

I’m a Trustee of a charity building a Northern Battle of Britain Memorial in Doncaster. Throughout lockdown I have been writing songs, stories, Facebook posts and making videos to fundraise and publicise the project online. www.battleofbritainnorth.co.uk   Oh and I’ve been gardening and sorting out tons of non-essential junk.

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

Going back to playing music live…spending time along with my wife Liz visiting our children and four grandchildren. There is also a need for some seriously overdue socialising with lots of friends and family in the UK and beyond.

Gwen Williamson

Tell us a bit about where you live and about your life?

I live in Bath in a 30s house above an allotment site overlooking the beautiful city. I was born in Wales and moved to Somerset when I was 5. I was home schooled and attended singing classes run by my mother. My early life was about caring for younger siblings, teaching myself the piano, baking bread and chocolate eclairs.

Why did you enter the King Lear Prizes?

It gave me an enjoyable focus during lockdown. I also submitted a poem.

What inspired your work?

I wrote “First Light” for my grandaughter, Eliza. We played it as a duet to begin with and then she learned both hands. It was such a joy to watch her play that it’s inspired me to keep writing.

What else have you been doing to keep busy in lockdown?

I’ve been learning some new piano music, a Bach prelude and also discovered some new country walks. 

What are you looking forward to most after lockdown?

I’m looking forward to going to visit my daughter and family in Amsterdam and giving my family and friends a hug!