Some Bloke on the beach

Although he describes himself simply as a 49 year-old Clash fan, Billy Bragg is more than an ordinary bloke. Paul Lashmar meets the man who doesn’t want to change the world, just help make it better.

Face flushed with the cold, Billy Bragg had just come off the beach at Burton Bradstock where he had been helping to clean oil debris from the stranded container ship Napoli. “Its foul, thick horrible stuff. Stinks as well,” he says. “There was a guillemot with oil on, I tried to rescue it but it went back out to sea.”
It was typical Billy Bragg, man of action and not just words. His outspoken left wing views might attract controversy and ire with some in Dorset, but whether you love him or loathe him one thing is agreed – he is no aloof celebrity. Here is a man always ready to lend a hand where it is most needed. “I was hoping Madonna moving down this way might take the strain, but sadly…” he jokes.
We met in No.10 in Bridport. In the flesh Billy Bragg has real physical presence. On stage or on television he looks every bit the scrawny punk rocker. Stand next to him and you realise he is a good six foot or more, stocky and clearly fit. There is still something of the 70s punk, though the angular features of the youth have become chiselled handsome and his hair has his share of grey for a 49 year old. Billy’s manner and physical movements are as confident as you might expect from a man who has spent more than half his life as a successful performer.
It’s been a busy year for Billy Bragg. His book The Progressive Patriot – a search for belonging was published a couple of months back. He had the “Hope not Hate Part 2” concert tour across the country in December and earlier his involvement in the Rosetta Life Hospice Project in Weymouth lead to a chart hit with Maxine Edgington and her daughter. Hardly a day goes by when Burton Bradstock’s most famous adopted son isn’t on the TV, radio or quoted in the papers.
Over coffee and fruit cake we get down to the interview. Who is the real Billy Bragg? A musician, social commentator, Working Class hero or Folkie?
“I am an entertainer, that’s what I do. That’s my job,” he answers in his rounded East London tones.
I ask the obvious question: Why does he do all these other projects when he could sit back on his pile of royalty cheques? Billy replies without hesitation. “Making records and doing gigs gives you a platform. How do you choose to use that platform? Just to sell more records? Well yes, obviously we all like to do that. But it gives you opportunity to do other things as well.” He says being known as outspoken and political leads to the unexpected. “If you make a point of sticking your neck out on certain things then people get in touch with you and interesting things transpire.”
Billy cites as typical a letter he got before Christmas from a drug’s counsellor at Her Majesty’s Prison Guys Marsh, (near Shaftesbury) asking if he might come along and help him with a guitar class.
“Talking to this guy up at Guys Marsh it seemed to me to be a really good thing, just what they (offenders in drug rehab) needed,” says Billy, exuding waves of enthusiasm. “Its small scale, he needs just a few instruments. What’s that – a few hundred quid? It occurred to me it was the kind of thing that Joe Strummer (of the Clash) would have done. It’s the fifth anniversary of Joe’s death this year, there are bound to be a couple of gigs. We could do a couple of benefit gigs to raise money,” he says. “A project like this allows me to do something beyond entertaining. Although,” he quickly reiterates, “My prime aim is entertaining people.”
Like Johnny Cash, he has been no stranger to playing in prisons. A couple of months ago he was in Brixton Prison as part of an anti racist campaign. The audience was not the easiest. “These were remand prisoners, who are very chippy,” he says. “They’re fresh off the street and think they are going to get out again. You are on their territory you have to give them ground. I started with Marley’s Redemption Song. They all sang along. After that I could do anything.”
He says people who are trying to make a difference tend to seek him out. “The bloke at HMP Guys Marsh probably wrote to me because he read about me going into the hospice and writing the songs with the women there or he might read about going into Beaminster school, a song writing project we did there.”
“People see you have a skill that can be used in their environment. I might get say a dozen of those requests a year that I can do. I can’t do all I am asked. If I can see one that I feel I can do, would be interesting to do and I have time, I’ll do it.”
Billy’s essence is best captured in the title of one of his albums, William Bloke. He is very, well, blokish. But for a big bluff bloke he can be quite emotional. “Initially, when I did Rosetta Life, I was asked if I would go into Great Ormond Street and write with the kids.” The request was to help with terminally ill children at the Great Ormond Street children’s hospital in London. “I just said I really don’t think I could do it. I have a son myself and really don’t think I could sit down with children and talk about those things and be objective.” Instead the charity Rosetta Life asked him to do a song writing project at the Trimar Hospice in Weymouth. One of the patients Maxine Edgington recorded a song with her daughter We laughed with Billy’s help that made the charts. “Rosetta Life is one of the things I am most proud,” says Billy. “Even if we had just sat there in the hospice and sang songs I would have been immensely proud. I didn’t expect any more – that was all the force of Maxine’s personality”
For the uninitiated Billy Bragg comes from Barking, Essex, an unromantic drab area in East London. Born in December 1957, Billy is very much a product of the mid 70s punk revolution. Even now he describes himself as, “a 49 year old Clash fan and hell, why not?” Billy first came to fame as a solo act in 1983. His intelligent, down to earth songs led to him being dubbed ‘The Bard of Barking.’ His political musical stance has always been uncompromising. He was a fierce critic of Margaret Thatcher and now Tony Blair. He has had a career-long allegiance to the anti-racist movement and was moved to write his recent book The Progressive Patriot after the far right British National Party won twelve council seats in his native Barking. “What does it mean to be English? What does it mean to be British?” he asks in the forward. The book attempts to pull together all the key themes and unresolved questions in the Bragg worldview. It is a memoir, a historical discourse and a polemic. To Billy the essence of the British character is clearly tolerance and openness. But he feels that is under threat, not least from Downing Street.
So much so that top of Billy’s current political agenda is the need for a Bill of Rights, a proper written constitution. “That’s what I have been mainly talking about at gigs.”
“I thank Tony Blair for making everyone realise we need a Bill of Rights.” Billy’s comment is heavy with irony. His sees a Bill of rights as a way of defining Britishness through a series of principles. “People recognise that their civil liberties are being eroded with ID cards and the idea of a single database that could have very intrusive results, especially if they get it wrong.”
Billy lives with his wife and son in a large cream painted house up on the cliffs. Why did he and his family settle here? “The thing I love about Burton Bradstock is that most of them are originally from Essex,” he jokes. “But seriously, West Dorset is culturally strong, especially when it comes to music. Bridport has a vibe. You get the feeling that something interesting happened here in the 60s and has left its mark.”
2007 is going to busy year for Billy. He has an album to record. He is also going go on tour with the “Imaginary Village” project. This is a updating of the folk tradition with modern take on old songs featuring people like Sheila Chandra, Benjamin Zephaniah, Martin Carthy, Paul Weller and West Dorset residents Show of Hands and Simon Emmerson of Afro Celt System. “I see this as being about recognition of tradition but also a renewal of the tradition of English folk music. It reflects the diversity of culture.”
Rumour has it that Billy and the Imaginary Village team may perform a pre-tour warm up in the Bridport area – watch out for it.