Month: February 2023

Achievements Part 3: a summary

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This is the third part in my series of posts about Dad (Wilf Mitford)’s achievements. It’s a summary of the impact of his work. All of the posts in this series are taken directly from an award nomination made by my Mum, Maggie, back in the late 1990s, which is an absolute gem in terms of the history of Dad’s folk music writing period. This is all of course just one part of his songwriting history. Before his venture into Geordie songs he wrote some great pop songs like ‘A Fool for You’ and ‘Sitting Here Thinking’, and in later life he wrote more about his own experiences in his album ‘Geordie on his Holidays in Spain’ and ‘A Northumbrian Geordie’.

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Achievements Part 2

Photo of Julia, Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Pamela, Unknown, Wilf at the Bond at Benwell
~ jmchild ~ Leave a comment

This is the second part of an award nomination letter written by my Mum that outlines some of Dad’s achievements. It puts so much of his work into context and order and will be enormously useful for me in compiling Dad’s archives in a meaningful way.

“Achievements between 1st August 1992 and 31st August 1993

Wilf Mitford commenced the above year by releasing an album on cassette called ‘Geordie Greats‘, recorded by his family folk group The Mitford Family, on his own label ‘Mitford Music’ in August 1992. The sixteen tracks on the album included ten of Wilf’s original songs on the theme of Newcastle upon Tyne, together with six traditional songs associated with the area. Wilf wrote his new songs about the area to redress the balance after all of the bad publicity the area received following the Tyneside riots in September 1991.

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