Making a Radio Ballad

I grew up in South Yorkshire with the pithead of Cadeby Colliery, one of the biggest pits in Britain framed in our kitchen window. So when we were commissioned by Radio 2 to make a Radio Ballad on the Miner's Strike of 1984-85 I was a bit daunted. Most of the people in our street worked at the pit, apart from my father, he worked in a foundry making castings and machine parts to be used at the pit. So in a way my early years were financed by pit money.

In 2006 we made six Ballads for Radio 2 based on the ground-breaking work of Charles Parker, Ewan McCall and Peggy Seeger, during the 1950s. Our efforts had been well received in the main, we won two Sony awards and were relatively pleased with our work and felt we'd stayed reasonably true to the original concept of a Radio Ballad. But when it came to the Ballad of The Miner's Strike I found it incredibly difficult to start the programme.

Vince Hunt had come back with some fantastic interviews, full of passion, poetry, honesty and anger. But I found it impossible to select material in a way that I felt did justice to people I'd grown up with, lived amongst and then watched on the sidelines as their way of life was totally destroyed during the 80s. I needed other thoughts and ideas.

I sent some of the interviews to songwriters Julie Matthews and Jez Lowe and within a week they had come back with three wonderful songs, Jez had Judas Bus and Arthur My Dear and Julie had written Beyond The Picket Line, a moving song about the role of women during the strike. These three songs pointed the way for me and we had our first chapters.

I then went to spend a day with John Tams and after about eight hours we had pretty much decided on a shape, the chapters and the fact that we needed at least six more songs. I left John to come up with them and with help from Ray Hearne and a moving piece of work from Kay Sutcliffe, Coal Not Dole, the songs began to arrive.

The Radio Ballads are a true teamwork. Many people have their hands on the tiller and help to determine the direction the programme will take. I thank all the musicians and songwriters, Andy Seward the music producer, Annie Grundy our editor, Vince Hunt our reporter and most importantly, musical director John Tams.

John Leonard is Exec Producer of Smooth Operations who produced the Ballad of the Miners' Strike for BBC Radio 2.

To hear all the stories and views, listen to the programme on Tuesday 2 March 2010 at 8.30pm on BBC Radio 2.

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Revisiting The Miners' Strike In Song - John Tams write about the programme

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Ballad of the Miner's Strike