COLDEST DAY: Voice - Huw. Guitar and Electronic Effects - David Cooper Orton.
Written on the coldest day of the winter when everybody, including myself, was stuck in and feeling lonely. Like most of my verse this piece depends upon the rhythm of the words to drive along the narrative. That's deeply unfashionable I know, but it's the only way I can do it.

GET IN LINE: Voice - Huw. Guitar and Percussion - David Cooper Orton.
A few years ago I was unemployed for a while, so had to visit the job centre once a week; a grim and humiliating experience. David and I began this piece by setting the words to an old Irish ballad about the potato famine called 'Over Here' and by trial and error have ended up with this.

THE BROBURY BELL: Voice - Huw with the Brobury Bell rung by Roger Thomas.
Brobury in Herefordshire is now little more than a few houses and a farm, and its church has been converted into a private dwelling. However, it's ancient bell, dated 1385 in Lombardic Capitals, has been rehung in nearby Bredwardine church. That such a thing survives is, I think, little short of a miracle and this poem celebrates the fact.

FERTILISER: Voice - Huw. Baritone Ukulele - David Cooper Orton.
“Cursed be he who moves my bones” is a line inscribed on Shakespeare’s memorial in Stratford church. Unusually for me I started with this line and developed the poem from it. David adds real atmosphere here with the sound of a bass ukulele stretched ten times.

UNCLE KEN: Voices - Huw and Jane Bowden.
This is a true story I've enjoyed telling many times over the years. Since recording this piece my Cousin tells me that my Uncle also turned down a request for a loan from Dusty Springfield.

BLANCHE: Voice - Huw. Recorded on location in Herefordshire and Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Much Marcle.
It comes to something doesn't it, when one falls in love with a woman who's been dead for almost seven-hundred years. But, 'beauty is a joy forever,' as they say and this story and poem is living proof of that.

WALTER: Voice – Huw.
Walter de Helyon is a national treasure! Like Blanche he's in Much Marcle church. Go and see him!

BEAUTIFUL BIRD: Voice – Huw.
A very sad story which tells of my discovery of a dead swallow on a windowsill inside Staunton-on-Wye church. There's sung version of this yet to come.

A STROKE OF LUCK: Voice – Huw.
My father had many stories about living through the early part of the Bristol blitz. He told them to me when I was very young and so they've stuck in my mind, particularly this one.

JUMBLED DREAMS: Voice - Huw. Stretched Flute - Thomasin Toohie. Additional Voices - Alun Jones and Harriet Whitehead. Additional Guitar - Chris Peete.
You have to be pucka British and eligible for your bus pass to understand this. My old pal Alun Jones, who is never short of words, ends this piece with an inimitable extemporisation; this time on the subject of the medieval mind.