The winners of our Amazing Grace song contest have been announced.
We joined forces with Woodhorn Colliery and Northumberland Archive to ask musicians in the region to compose a song inspired by Grace Darling, the 19thcentury sea rescue heroine from Northumberland to tie in to the tour of our new play, Amazing Grace.
The competition was open to any individual or group, and the song could be of any genre as long it related to Grace Darling in some way.
The response was fantastic with more than 60 entries, giving judges Ray Laidlaw, Brendan Healey and the BBC’s Jeff Brown a difficult job to narrow it down to six, which will be broadcast during the three-week tour of the play throughout the region in October and November. However, after a few fights in the judging room they eventually narrowed the list down to the six winners:
Peter Carr: The Girl with the Windswept Hair (North Shields, Tyne & Wear)
John Leslie: Dear Grace (Nedderton, Northumberland)
John D Lewis: Tie the Boat Down (Langton, Darlington)
Stan Graham: Grace Darling (Earswick, York)
Chris Kelly: Grace (Lanchester, Co. Durham)
John Pagan: The Keepers Daughter (Milnthorpe, Cumbria)
Woodhorn is home to Northumberland Archives which houses records of lasting importance to the county of Northumberland, including several relating to Grace Darling. Many of her letters and papers celebrating her legacy are housed at Woodhorn as part of the collection of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle and are available to view in their Study Centre.
Woodhorn Exhibition and Events Officer Liz Ritson explained: “We were delighted to work with Ed and Trevor on this. It’s been a terrifically popular initiative, the standard of entries was really great and the final concert was brilliant.”