After a life on the road, folk legend Peggy Seeger has settled in the village of Iffley on the outskirts of Oxford.  In this episode she talks poignantly about her mother, a talented composer who died when she was fifty-three and Peggy was just eighteen.  Peggy recites a poem called “My Mother is Younger Than Me”.  She sings old union songs, including “The Miner’s Prayer”, recalls her time on the Greenham Common protests, shows us a piece of the wire fence she keeps on her mantelpiece and sings a song called “A Woman on Wheels” which is about a protester in a  wheelchair who she saw using bolt cutters to breach that fence. Come with us on a walk through Peggy Seeger’s life in an unforgettable episode of Folk on Foot.

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The guitarist, singer and songwriter Kris Drever was born and brought up on Orkney, the archipelago off the Northern coast of Scotland which is steeped in history. The walk starts in the main town of Kirkwall with its huge sandstone cathedral commemorating St Magnus who came to an untimely end. In the graveyard Kris sings “Winter Moon”. Then they head off to the shores of the great natural harbour at Scapa Flow where Kris performs his powerful song about the scuttling of the entire German navy there in 1919. They end up at the chapel created in a nissen hut by Italian prisoners during the Second World War – a poignant setting for Kris’s song “Ghosts”.

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In search of the festive spirit of Christmas – and bearing gifts -  we travel to the Peak District and Sheffield to hear the area’s unique local carols. Along the way we collect music from Jon Boden, Bella Hardy, The Melrose Quartet and the singers of the villages of Dungworth and Hathersage. We hear how the traditional carols written and sung by working people were thrown out of the church – and had to find a new home in the village pubs. Put on your Santa hat, reindeer antlers or Christmas jumper, get yourself a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie and join us.  

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This episode has by far the largest cast of walkers we’ve ever assembled – and the most musicians.  The lead singer of Oysterband John Jones started walking from gig to gig and singing on the way long before our podcast was invented. He’s done it all over the country and he’s usually accompanied by a bunch of fans who call themselves the Reluctant Ramblers. On a scorching hot summer’s day, we join them for a walk over Old Winchester Hill, along part of the South Downs Way and the Meon Valley to the Wickham Festival.

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For twelve years, the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Nancy Kerr lived on a narrow boat, travelling the length and breadth of England’s inland waterways. As she walks on the towpath with Matthew Bannister, she tells how the experience inspired many of her songs – and performs two of them: “Queen of Waters” and “Tiller Song”. Nancy explains that folk music was part of her upbringing, with her mother Sandra Kerr a well-known performer and her father a Northumbrian pipe player. Did she ever fall in to the canal? “Yes, about once a month!” 

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Featuring: Nancy Kerr along the Kennet and Avon Canal, John Jones and the Reluctant Ramblers walking to the Wickham Festival, Kris Drever on Orkney, Peggy Seeger in Iffley and Bella Hardy in Edale.

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Featuring: “Never Any Good” by Martin Simpson;  “Charm On, Goldfinch” by Beth Porter; “Union Miner” by The Unthanks; “Salty and Sweet” by John Smith; “Lavender Song” by Lisa Knapp;  “A Precious Place” by Duncan Chisholm

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Martin Simpson performs some of the songs from his new album “Rooted” and talks to Matthew Bannister on the Big Barn stage at the BBC Countryfile Live event in the grounds of Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire.

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Sandwood Bay, at the far North Western tip of Scotland near Cape Wrath, is one of the most beautiful beaches in the UK. This wild, isolated place inspired the Scottish fiddle player and composer Duncan Chisholm’s album “Sandwood”.  He takes Matthew on the four-mile walk from the nearest road to experience the stark beauty of white sand, ancient rocks and rolling waves, telling stories of storms, hauntings and the remains of a Viking longship hidden under the beach. Then it’s out with the fiddle to hear some of the music inspired by Sandwood.

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The singer and fiddle player Lisa Knapp takes Matthew to the south London borough of Tooting where she was born and brought up. She performs songs with links to the area and tells how she stumbled across the Tooting Tragedy – a story of neglect and ill treatment at a local children’s home in Victorian times that led to hundreds of deaths and caused an outcry led by Charles Dickens. Lisa uncovered a haunting ballad about the story and sings it in the graveyard where many of the children are buried.

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