Tyne Valley Community Rail Partnership (CRP) has worked with local schoolchildren on a musical project celebrating Brampton’s railway heritage.
As part of their programme of Railway 200 activities, the partnership worked with singer-songwriters Gareth and Bronwen Davies-Jones, Hallbankgate Village School and Lanercost Church of England Primary School on ‘A Song for Edmondson’.
Gareth and Bronwen ran a series of workshops with the pupils, helping them to write lyrics to songs featuring Brampton Station and Thomas Edmondson, its stationmaster in 1836 and pioneer of railway ticketing. Their song ‘Edmondson’ features the ticketing system invented by him whilst working at Brampton Station, which was introduced throughout the country and nationally.
Through writing their song lyrics, the pupils learned important historical facts, including about why Brampton Station is 1.8 miles from the town and the importance of coal to the Earl of Carlisle in the 1830s.
The project opened up many ‘firsts’ for the children. A sound engineer visited Hallbankgate Village School to record one of the songs, giving the young ones an introduction to sound recording, and several went on their first train journey to Haltwhistle to see the racks of Edmondson tickets in the Old Booking Hall and experience how tickets were sold in the 19th century.
The musical workshops culminated in the premiere of the new songs, performed by the children and their teachers, at Lanercost Priory.
The project was made possible through funding from the Community Rail Development Fund and CrossCountry.
You can view the full playlist of performances here.
Clare Hutton, headteacher of Hallbankgate Village School, said: “We have been lucky to have taken part in this project. We knew that it would be special, but little did we know how special this part of our learning journey would be…singing makes us feel good.”
Anne Ridley, Tyne Valley CRP’s director of marketing, communications and events, said: “What an amazing afternoon! It was such a wonderful, memorable, passionate and enthusiastic performance. The feedback from members of the audience I spoke to as they were leaving was so positive and enthusiastic.”
Fiona Forsythe, Tyne Valley CRP’s officer, said: “The project introduced so many new skills and experiences to everyone involved: the children learned about Brampton’s railway heritage, rail travel today, songwriting, public performance and sound engineering, all whilst enjoying singing the songs they wrote.”
Keep up to date with future news, projects and events from Tyne Valley CRP via their website.
