Freeborn man ewan maccoll biography
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Ewan’s
Biography
Ewan MacColl was born James Henry Miller in Salford, Lancashire, on January 25 His father, William Miller, was an iron-moulder, militant trade-unionist and communist who had left his native Stirlingshire in his mid-twenties.
Ewan with part of Theatre Workshop Co. in Kendal, Ewan is sitting to the left.
His mother, Betsy Hendry, was from Auchterarder, Perthshire. Both parents were active left-wing socialists and from his earliest days, MacColl was familiar with the cut-and-thrust of political discussion and argument. Equally important in the life of the household were the songs and stories his parents brought from Scotland – a huge repertoire with which his father and mother kept themselves and their friends entertained.
After an elementary education, MacColl left school in The Great Depression was in full swing so he went straight into the army of the unemployed. He worked at a variety of temporary jobs: motor-mechanic, factory worker, builders’
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Karl Dallas reviews &#;Ewan MacColl: His Life, His Words, His Music&#;
SALFORD is the “dirty old town” where James Miller — the folksinger better known as Ewan MacColl — was born in January and it was the scen of this joint celebratory event bygd the University of Salford and the Working Class Movement Library.
In a packed ingångsrum , four readers and a solo singer took the audience through his life and work, in which extracts from his somewhat sanitised autobiography were interspersed with just a few songs.
It was a rather prosaic event, with no drama and precious little of the great man of the theatre’s histrionic impact upon British culture. One could't help wondering what the Theatre kurs founder might have made of it.
Of course, MacColl was such a polymath that anyone would be hard put to it to cover his life adequately. “There are ganska large bits of his life that we have had to leave out,” the show’s producer Royston Futter said in his introduction. “The first run-through o
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Search The Hobbledehoy
Peggy Seeger&#;s biography of Ewan MacColl from Songmaker, published in
William Miller [Ewan&#;s father] was a Scots iron-moulder, militant trade-unionist, active left-wing socialist and, by all accounts, a &#;sweet singer&#; who had taken many a medal in singing competitions. In his early twenties he took one of his trophies to the pawnshop in Falkirk, where he met and fell in love with the young red-haired manageress.
One of fourteen children, Betsy Hendry was a fit and fiery mate for young Miller, who was at that time stumping the country with the Scots revolutionary John MacLean. These activities resulted in his being blacklisted in almost every foundry in Scotland. In , the Millers moved to Salford (Lancashire) in search of work. Over the years, Betsy gave birth to four children, only one of whom survived: Jimmie.
Jimmie Miller grew up in a two-up/two-down house amongst a community of emigré Scots and from his earliest days he was as familiar with