Having written the treatment for what would become Idle Women: The Musical, the story of women who worked on England’s canal boats during the second world war, Jones turned his attention to another female historical figure with his multi-media, one-man stage show about his mother Barbara Naisbitt. The songs and narration from that now form his second album, Snow Along The Line.

Born in Darlington in 1928, months before the Equal Franchise Act, her story covers almost a 100 years of British history from the depression of the 30s, WW2, the re-building of the country through the welfare state through to the rise of Thatcherism and the decline of the South Wales mining industry alongside more personal stories of work, family, bereavement, ill-health and death.

Determined to see the world beyond bicycling around her grimy railway town, in 1951 she and two friends took a coach trip to Spain where she met her future husband, Doug, returning home to spend the rest of her days a small Welsh mining town where, known as “the English woman up the mountain”, she made a life for herself and her family, The 1970s , saw her embrace the radical spirit of Adult Education through Barry Summer School, launching a fulfilling career in teaching and, later, having trained as a tailoress in her youth, soft furnishings, eventually losing her sight and dying in 2023 at the age of 95.

She never changed the world, her name was never written in history books, and on the face of it her story’s mundane. Except, in her son’s telling, it’s one of a life shaped by changes that swept the nation, of everyday triumphs and, ultimately, one of feminist empowerment.

Opening with ‘Overture’ where a siren becomes woodwind and muted drums carry things along, brass colours between the lines and Hannah Barrie’s narration introduces Barbara before Daniel Rehahn on trombone and led by piano, the first song, ‘Women Take The Wheel’ noting there’s “a time in the history of each nation/When tradition steps aside for what is right/And the normal set of order /Gives away to newer things/When the good wins over what is might” as it celebrates both Barbara’s birth and women getting the vote (“Now will rise the fist and the petticoat/Beside the pit men’s trews and hobnail boots/And the dockers, eyes downcast /See their mothers worth at last”). Jones on warm harmonium with narration from Barrie, ‘Railway Town’, a song about her roots, is sung in Barabara’s voice(“ I was born to a home and a hearth/The outside privy and the old tin bath/My father worked the rails and my mother tended us/That’s the way in a Railway Town”).

David Warner joins on accordion for ‘Be At Home’ which speaks to the struggles of families during the depression, putting their children first (“Bless these faithful families /Who hold their bairns so close/Keep them from their worries /Defend them from their woes /The poor and the jobless/The sick and badly fed/They put their children foremost/They’re last to see the bread”).

Again with trombone, David Warner on piano, Jed Cutler on lead guitar and Jones on double bass, heading into the 40s, as the title suggests ‘No One Puts Barbara In The Corner’ speaks to both his mother’s feisty spirit (“She can swim like a pike/she can spit like a mule /she’ll fight the biggest boys /but not if they’re cute ”) and the girls like her (“They build them tough up there in the North East/Those Darlo girls are not for holding back…Young factory lads with pay packets aplenty /Don’t impress Barb and her entourage…Wits as quick as foot to heel/Spirits high and love for life at large”).

The line “the world will mend for me and for you” spills over into the imagery of the ukulele-coloured ‘Bobbins To Tailoring’, and again sparks with proud defiance (“You can take your cloth/You can take your thread/You can shove it where the sun don’t shine/You take your needles and whatever else/Bobbins to Tailoring for the men so fine/I’d rather be working with the men in the mine/Then measuring the inside leg of the likes of you/I’d rather be standing in that old dole queue”).

Accordion and double bass return for the fairground waltzer ‘And They Danced’ which picks up the story of that coach trip (“Gave a quiet young shy chap in a dark suit a glance/Later she was to give that chap a chance”) and the chorus capturing the spirit of hope with the war over (“And they danced to the future of Europe/Now freedom and peace cast anew/,,,And they danced for all who were lost/Those who paid the ultimate cost/They danced for their own lives to be/And they danced for you and for me”).

Jones a one man male voice choir, ‘No Peace In The Valley’, almost rapping the lines as it tells of Barbara’s difficulties as an English woman living in Wales (“I got a wrong onetime/For knitting on the sabbath…They told me it was green/But it’s clearly all black/With the dawning of this dread/I want to go back/See my mother and my sisters”) where “those deep dark pits…Will clog up your lungs/And stop up your heart” but resolving to lie in the bed she’d made for herself “in a miner’s hovel/A po beneath the bed”.

Set to a slow drum thumping funeral march rhythm, inspired by a conversation with Peggy Seeger and the narration speaking about the 1966 Aberfan disaster when a mountain of slag enveloped a school, killing 116 children (Jones, then six, lived just a few miles away), Doesn’t Happen To The Poor’ is a wry social commentary on the economic divide where the haves are prioritised over the have nots (“Up in London their dining out on foie gras/They’ll take the country down and walk away again/They’re not normal criminals, they’re ahead of the law …The suited men are always watching out for you/They know they have to look out for the safety of your time/This kind of thing doesn’t happen to the poor”). The stage show links the way of thinking with images of Hillsborough, New Cross Fire and Grenfell.

Switching to an urgent, driving rhythm ‘Night Classes’ relates to how Babara and many others ventured into adult education to upskill themselves (“Got the skills that go untapped/Potential yet unwrapped/A future to me mapped”), whether learning to lay a parquet floor or learning French to holiday in Brittany.

Jones taking up banjo, fiddle and double bass, the gently fingerpicked, lullabying ‘Last Days Of Wonder’ signals the arrival of Thatcherism as the motto ‘rebuild and renew’ and collective bargaining are replaced by “greed is good/Became the cry/We can sell off your assets/In the blink of an eye/Devil take the hindmost/They’ll stand upon their own”.

The title track finds Barbara being accepted into the Welsh community, respected for her needlework skills (“I’ve mended each of their flies/There’s one trouser trick so you’ll wear it well”) the lyrics bringing into relief that hard life of a mining town (“Old men spit upon the street/Mucus cold and hot at once/Breathless gaze and hacking chest/They call both weak and tough”) and her resolution to “meet metal with mettle”, throwing in a cheeky nod to ‘Where Do You Go To My Lovely’, and the received wisdom that “the time is best for those who/Best their time”.

Things start to wind to a close with Bela Emerson’s cello adding to the double bass of ‘Quiet Majesty’ with its simple mundane romantic image of “Just a couple of loves/Out there on a spree/Knitted hats and gaberdine/Trousers rolled up to the knee/Just two halfs, salt and vinegar/Couldn’t eat much more…Let’s have another brew” with its snapshot of the town’s women and widowhood where “in the company of friends/Words are not compulsory” and sorrows are shared (“In circumstance unwelcome/You’ll be at my front door”).

Resolving with “come on now, easy comrade/Tie up your walking shoes/We’ll step on out together/Walk the path we choose”, it gives way to the largely a capella ‘It’s A Different World Altogether’, tapping into that feeling that, when you reach a certain age, the world is leaving you behind (“I’m not sure I approve, I don’t like it at all/But that’s how it goes”), Barrie’s narration quoting Barbara’s frequent line “old age is no place for sissies”. But...

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