Postcards for the King

In this episode Josie Moon talks to Sue Baker and Caroline Gooch about a musical project with our East Marsh schools that has been quite a journey.  

In 2020 Josie began the Anthem for the East Marsh project, a plan to write a community song featuring ideas and lyrics from the community.  Sue and Caroline undertook work in all six schools to gather ideas from the children for the song. Alongside contributions from the Peace Choir, community members and children's wishes from our 2021 engagement day in Grant Thorold Park, the children's words from the schools were transformed into verses.  

Jo and Olivia Townell then worked on the lyrics and composed a beautiful melody. Caroline and Sue returned to the schools and taught the song to the children. The Peace Choir learnt their version and the Anthem came to life. 

In July 2022, children from the East Marsh schools came together  and performed the Anthem plus other songs at Havelock Academy in a concert of celebration.  Special guests at that event were Jason Stockwood, Debbie Cook and Kristine Green of Grimsby Town Football Club.  Jason was so moved by the concert and the children's voices that he invited children from each school to be mascots at a match and invited all the other children to attend as guest singers. 

From July last year to April this year, Sue and Kristine worked hard to enable 170 children and parents from the East Marsh to attend the April 13th home game against Barrow.  We took over the Osmond Stand and sang the heroic tale of Grim the fisherman plus some chants written for the event.  It was a joyous and raucous evening. 

Sue and Caroline felt there was more that could be done with the children's lyrics and came up with the fabulous idea of returning to the schools to work with children to record audio postcards for King Charles, messages about their lives for the new king in the year of his coronation.  The children decided to set their words to hip hop beats and their postcards are now being mastered to send away to the king.

This whole project was made possible through initial funding from the National Lottery and then Creative Civic Change.

Special thanks to:

Sue Baker, Caroline Gooch, Jo Townell, Olivia Townell, Jason Stockwood, Kristine Green, all at GTFC and our East Marsh Schools; William Barcroft Academy, Strand Academy, Weelsby Academy, Phoenix Park Academy, St Mary's RC Academy and Havelock Academy.

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Intro and Outro music: extracts from DEJA VU by Christian Laverick, from the album 'Chromatica' (2010). More at: www.grimsbyguitar.co.uk 

Produced by Andy Nicol for East Marsh United, 2023