Keith Marsden

Keith Marsden

I met Morley born Keith Marsden, one of the founding members of the Grove Folk Club on my first visit to the club. Keith had gained an interest in folk music while studying at Kings College, London University and on leaving University he got a job with the Midland Bank and over the years he rose to the position of Manager. He originally started the club, then called the Seven Hills Folk Club, with his brother Howard, wife Christine and Brian Senior in 1962. Shortly after Howard suddenly died and Christine stopped singing, so Keith and Brian became a duo called New Heritage, and the club’s name was changed to Folk at the Grove.

One Friday night in Autumn 1965, Keith and Brian announced they were going to sing a new song, ‘Bring Us a Barrel’, claiming that they had collected the song from old Charley Hayes of Reading. Later Keith admitted that he had written it himself and confided he had come across all the different sizes of barrels at the bank, while working on the tax account for a local brewery.

In the early 1970s Keith moved to Grimsby and started frequenting the local folk club. It was there Keith met the song writing duo, John Connolly and Bill Meek who wrote numerous songs about the fishing trade in Grimsby, including the classic ‘Fiddlers Green’, he was inspired and his song writing flourished. In 1976, he moved from Grimsby to Withernsea , but soon his native Yorkshire beckoned. In 1979 he moved back to the West Riding to a job at the Midland Bank Thornbury, Bradford, and started singing at the Grove again. It was there that he met Peter Ogley who had recently formed a duo with Sue Thornton, and they persuaded Keith to join them in forming a new group. He agreed and shortly after, Val, Keith’s girlfriend also joined the group. They had no trouble sourcing new material, deciding to focus on Keith’s newly written songs, especially the ones chronicling and reminiscing about growing up as a boy in the industrial township of Morley.

Old black and white image of 2 men and 2 women singing

Original Cockersdale -
Keith, Val, Peter Ogley & Sue Thornton

It was 1981 and I was running the Bag of Shoddy Folk Club on Thursday nights at the Old Wine and Spirit Vaults in Birstall, Batley. Unbeknown to me the newly formed group's practice night was Thursday.

Then one night halfway through the evening they turned up at the club to give the songs they had been practicing on a try out. As the group was then unnamed, Keith asked if I could suggest something suitable, I proposed some names, from which they chose one, and ‘Cockersdale’ was born.

Sometime later, Keith told me he had been asked by an old friend of his, the local historian and photographer David Atkinson, if the group would like to perform at Morley Town Hall for the local History Society. David had spent his life making a photographic record detailing life at the mill, and other places of local interest in Morley, and hoped the group would take part in a presentation featuring his pictures, supported with renditions of Keith’s songs. He said they had agreed to do so, and would I like to join them and sing ‘Old Dick Drummond’s Grey Mare’ as David had a great set of photos he had taken at the local ‘Lee Gap Fair’. I hastily agreed too.

Cover of the album Prospect Providence by Cockersdale

PROSPECT PROVIDENCE
Album Cover

As word spread about ‘Cockersdale’, local bookings and work farther afield followed and in 1985 they released their first album ‘Prospect Providence, Songs by Keith Marsden’.

The record was on the English Folk Dance And Song Society label EDLP 001. Side A of the record features six of Keith’s popular Morley songs:

1. Prospect, Providence, Perseverance
2. I Remember Morley
3. Billy Armitage
4. Willy ‘Ole Lad
5. City Lament
6. Funeral Song

The final track on Side B is the first song Keith wrote, Bring Us A Barrel.

Unfortunately while the record was in the production process Peter developed throat problems and was advised not to sing, so he unhappily had to leave the group. The first issue of the record was an immediate sellout and it had to be re-issued in cassette form.

DOIN’ THE MANCH
Album cover

Cockersdale’s second record ‘Doin’ The Manch’ on the Fellside Recordings label FE072 was released in 1989 and it features five more of Keith’s songs that he had written in years since the release of ‘Prospect Providence’ and other songs by mostly other contemporary song writers he greatly admired.

The album’s title and opening track refers to the popular Friday night pastime, in the 1950s and 60s, of many Bradfordians of doing a crawl of the rumoured 28 pubs on Manchester Road. Keith worked at the Manchester Road Branch of the Midland Bank for a while.

There are many fine other songs on the album, but the stand out track for me is the poignant masterful anti-war song that closes Side A, 'Normandy Orchards'.

In July 1985, John O’Hagan joined the group as a replacement for Peter Ogley. Over the next two years, as the group became more well-known, their appearances at folk clubs and festival increased.

John, who was working in Manchester had to move with his job in May 1987 to Bexhill on Sea in the South of England, but more bad news was to follow.

In June of that year Keith had a heart attack, and the group had to cancel all bookings. By September Keith had mostly recovered, so he asked Graham Pirt if he would like to join the group, and he agreed.
Cockersdale then worked shortly as a trio, but in 1988 John moved back North with a new job and the group were a foursome again.

Cover of the book Picking Sooty Blackberries

‘Picking Sooty Blackberries’,
book cover

Things remained pretty stable for the next three years, then on 10th August 1991, shortly following highly successful appearances at Warwick and Sidmouth Folk Festival, Keith suddenly died from another heart attack.

Following his premature death at the age of 51, the three remaining members of Cockersdale, Val, John O’Hagan and Graham Pirt, decided to publish a biographical book featuring his songs.

The book, ‘Picking Sooty Blackberries’, contains a comprehensive biography of his life and twenty-five of Keith’s own songs plus assorted other writings and acknowledgements.

The book's title was taken from a line in Keith’s song ‘I Remember Morley’, and it serves as a lasting testimony and fitting memorial to one of the folk scene's finest folk singer songwriters.

About Mick

Mick Haywood is a traditional folk singer & folk song collector who has run and organised folk clubs and festivals for many years. He now lives in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

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