Your Affectionate Son

In 2019, Robb was commissioned by Hartlepool Folk Festival to write a set of songs for their featured concert Your Affectionate Son. The concert was based upon a collection of First World War letters home written by Hartlepool resident Private George Gower. Performed by Damien Barber, Eliza Carthy, Luke Daniels, John Hegley, The Durham Miners’ Association Brass Band, Robb, Jack Worth, Jackie Oates, Mike Wilson & the Wilsons, the evening was a resounding triumph. Although it was not possible to record fully the event, the festival were very happy when Robb decided to record the songs that he had written.

In the concert programme, Robb wrote: “When I first read through these letters, I wasn’t sure what I could do with them. There’s George, in the middle of the most cataclysmic conflict in Europe in recent history & all he seems to worry about is the price of eggs. It was only when the letters stopped that I realised that George’s story isn’t contained at all in the cheerful chat, but in what George doesn’t say.”

George doesn’t write about what happened to his regiment at Poelkappelle, doesn’t write about the gas attack at Ypres that killed him 20 years later, and doesn’t write about his sexuality. The songs use George’s words, corroborated by some contemporary documents and background research, and George’s silences, to tell the story of one particular everyman’s experience of the War To End All Wars. The songs reflect upon the processes of historical change, & for all those awful silences. the songs are about how we love each other, nonetheless.

Rather than attempt to recreate the instrumentation of the concert how do you record a brass band during a pandemic anyway? – Robb decided to record this album live in the studio, accompanied only by the breathtakingly beautiful piano accompaniment of Jenny Carr, and let the songs speak for themselves.