Andy D'Agorne

This weekend I combined attending the national Association of Green Councillors conference with the 28th National Street Choirs Festival, both in the vibrant Sheffield city centre. On Friday evening I was helping to steward at the evening concert, featuring a line up called 'The Free Radicals' - a group whose roots go back to the 80's when several of the members were either in the Sheffield Street Band or founder members of the Sheffield Socialist Choir. The recently refurbished City Hall Ballroom was also an appropriate venue for the event - my earliest memory of which was attending a NALGO benefit for the Miners Strike, also about the time of the first 'Street Bands Gathering' as it was called which consisted of 3 bands - Sheffield Street Band, the Fall Out Marching Band (London) and the Dirt Sisters (Nottingham) - I was there, as  a 'groupie' having seen them all playing at protests at the Cruise Missile base being built at Molesworth. Eight years later in 1992 I was on the organising committee for the '10th National Street Music Festival' in Sheffield - by then I had succeeded in getting Sheffield Socialist Choir to participate and changing the name to a more inclusive title. The procession through the streets featured us singing at the front - as I recall a very difficult tune to march to in 7/8 time by John Webber, followed by some 60 of us singing on the City Hall steps in the rain. Fast forward to the 2010 Street Choirs (no longer bands taking part) and Saturday saw bright sunshine beaming down on 800 singers all neatly packed in their parts on the steps to sing protest songs reflecting struggle and protest - from Rosa Parks, to Billy Bragg's updated version of the Internationale (can now find a half decent video of these on You tube, listed alongside some of our cuban performances!). 'Busking' is still a key feature of the event with performances in the many squares and public spaces around the city centre - I was priviledged to sing with the choir that I first joined as a founder member in 1988 in the Winter Gardens - an example of modern sustainable design for a northern public space. The weekend included a walk around a city that I left 10 years ago with local Green Party members to look at some of the follies of the 'rejuvenation' that people who extol the virtues overlook - the half demolished fire station HQ built in the 1980s now being taken down for a massive 'retail quarter' that may never appear because of the recession and rise of internet sales - the St Pauls Tower skyscraper that dominates the previously inspiring open sky above the glass roof of the Winter Gardens - the second makeover of the Crucible Square in 20 years that now channels all the runoff from a large paved area down towards the doors to the Crucible! On our walking round we also so some of the evidence still of the devastating 2007 summer floods - a testiment to the future problems of climate change in a hilly area with lots of hard landscaping and new development.

 The highlight of the weekend was the Saturday evening concert - for once I chose to be in the audience rather than performing, so I was able to listen, not just to tenors but the whole effect as Sheffield Socialist Choir sang a song 'Ire Santiago' we had sung in Cuba and a new powerful song about the 2009 Israeli attack on the people of Gaza - 'A blinding flash of white light lit up the sky over Gaza tonight, people running for cover, not knowing whether they're dead or alive  - we will not go down in the night without a fight, you can burn up our mosques our homes and our schools but our spirit will never die...We will not go down in Gaza tonight' It reminded me why the Sheffield choir has been so important to me - with the mix of political committment to fighting for justice and inspiration for those involved in those struggles to strengthen their resolve to achieve change - In 1990 the choir sang in Sheffield Cathedral at 48 hours notice in celebration of Nelson Mandella's release from prison, in 1989 we learnt the Internationale in Chinese within 3 weeks to sing in solidarity with those murdered in Tiennamen Square.

Cameron and Clegg are now spawning a whole new generation of political song as we struggle to defend public services and what advances have been made since Thatchers era.

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