Graeme Miles

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Welcome to the Graeme Miles online shop.  Please email your order to the website or contact ailsamackenzie@aol.com for details of purchasing.

Note:

Songs of Ironopolis Double CD now only available digitally. 
Songs of Ironopolis booklet £5, P&P £2 extra

Due at the end of March 2025: Shadows and Whispers – Graeme Miles Remembered, by Ailsa MacKenzie.  This beautifully illustrated biography is in hardback with a lovely, tactile matte cover –  437 pages packed with songs (70 notations), as well as many drawings, photographs and proses by Graeme and contributions from those who knew and loved him and those who did not know him but have been inspired by him.  Separate chapters are devoted to Graeme’s love of industrial and rural Teesside and Cleveland, his life with his wife Annie, his songs, his drawings and his many proses.  Contributors include Martyn Wyndham-Read, The Young’uns, Mike Nicholson, Ailsa MacKenzie, Barrie and Ingrid Temple, Johnny Handle, The Wilson Family, Stan Croft, Pete Burnham, as well as Graeme’s wife Annie and others, all of whom discuss what his songs mean to them.  Cost (UK) £24 with £4 postage and packaging (UK).

*A free MP3 of ten songs by Graeme, sung by him, together with his narrating the On Greatham Marshes song cycle, will be sent with the book to all those who order before the end of March.  All the songs on the MP3 are in the book.

 

The Ironopolis Singers

The Ironopolis Singers was formed by Graeme and Kevin Hall specifically to publicise Graeme’s unknown industrial, rural and other songs.  The group have brought out three double CDs: Songs of Ironopolis, Purple Acres and They Bunged Us in Khaki.  All retail at £12 including p and p (UK).

Songs of Ironopolis:  21 tracks of songs mainly of industrial Middlesbrough, with narration by Graeme.  Available virtually together with CD booklet and cover.  An accompanying Songs of Ironopolis booklet of the complete lyrics and prose is also available at £5, with p and p £2.  The double CD relates the rise of Middlesbrough as a great iron and steel production town thanks to the discovery in the 1850s of good quality iron ore in the nearby Cleveland Hills and moors. Songs include The Salt People (On Greatham Marshes), The Iron Men, Fair Rosedale, The Drift from the Land, Hewin’ for the Ore, Good bye to Ando’s and A Great Northern River.


Purple Acres - A Journey across the North York Moors and the Cleveland Hills

This is the last album that Graeme contributed to and is a collection of wonderful songs of the beautiful rural landscape above Middlesbrough, so loved by Graeme. Songs include Horumarye, The Hawthorns are Silent, Along the Guisborough Road, Pretty Meg o’ Westerdale, and O Should We Curse the Winter?  Thirty seven tracks including narrations by Graeme.

They Bunged Us in Khaki

This double CD was recorded to commemorate the tenth anniversary of Graeme’s death in 2013. Graeme had to complete his National Service in the 1950s. It was a mostly unhappy time for him, pacifist that he was, but he soldiered through it and was able to compose, sketch and write during his 22 months as an infantryman/batman.  Much of his service was carried out on the Luneburg Heath, which as then in West Germany. Songs include: Playing at Games of War, Song to Clara, The Eagle and The Dove, Northallerton Town, William Dove, Last Call of the Day, A Railwayman’s Farewell to Darlington, The Shores of Old Blighty, Soldiers of the Queen.  Narrated by Ironopolis Singer Ken Hall

Songbooks

Graeme produced two songbooks, Forgotten Songs Remembered and Songscapes (the latter a collaboration with Robin Dale).  They include many of Graeme’s best-known songs, with their notation, as well as illustrations by him. Songscapes also includes many of Robin’s superb colour photographs of old Middlesbrough.  Both are now out of print they may be obtained digitally at £15 (FSR) and £20 (S), or £3 per song.

Songscapes: 57 songs, in alphabetical order: Across the Shingle, Along the Guisborough Road, Ballad of William Davidson (Smokestack Land), Banks of the Tees (The),  Birds Among the Reeds (The), Bonesetter (The), Coriamgo, Coronach for a Young Man, Creekwaterside, Day of the Torrey Canyon (The), Drift from the Land (The), Exercise No. 69 (Looks Like Summer’s Nigh), Exercise no. 77 (Amoret), Eagle and the Dove (The), Fair Rosedale, Farewell to the Cuillins and the Crags, Farndale Daffodils, Gardens of the Moon (The), Goodbye Ironopolis, Green Banks of Grain (The), Heath of Luneburg (The), Horumarye, Hills of Yatton (The), Iron-making Town, Iron Moulder’s Wedding (The), Jacko the Shunter, Lapwing’s Feather (The), Levenside, Life of William Belringer (The), Marion Gray, Merry Little Hop (The), Moor of Hograh (The), My Eldorado, Northallerton Town, Otago, Over Yonder Banks, Old Man of the Sea (The), Old Workhorse (The), Path by Eskwater (The), Running Fox (The), Sad February, Salt People (The, aka On Greatham Marshes), Sea Coal, Shepherd on the Fell (The), Shores of Old Blighty (The), Squaddie’s Lullaby (The), Waiting for the Ferry, Wealden Men (The), Westerdale, When the Green Man Walks the Forest, When the Snows of Winter Fall, When the Tees Ran Warm, Where Ravens Feed, Woeful Scarecrow (The), Wolviston Rook (The), Yarm Fair, Young Engineer (The).

Forgotten Songs Remembered: 67 songs, as per the index:  Crying ‘Crakes (The), Flying Enterprise (The), Blue Sunset, West Hartlepool Match Factory Fire (The), Slumber Ye Well, Lucinda’s Lullaby, Song of Clara (Goodbye to the Garden of England), A Conscript’s Song, Last Call of the Day, Two Years in the Ranks, Soldiers of the Queen, Playing at Games of War, Beaver Trail (The), Short Ballad of Nathan Drew (The), Lands Beneath the Sun (The), Follow that Road, Road to Bethlehem (The), A Foundryman by Trade, They’ll be the Lads, Baltic Taverner’s Song (The), Ring of Iron, Foundry-yard Battle (The), Song of the Clevelands, Old Turnip Head, A Time for a Man to Remember, Down in the Slems, Voices from the Sea, Those Silent Ships, William Stone, Last of the Cleveland Miners (The), An Evening in Sumer, Rich Man Poor Man, I’ll Buy My Love a Coat, Ghost of White Hart Lane (The), Fair the Heather Grows, Dark December (O Should We Curse the Winter?), In Praise of Barrelled Beer, Rabbit of Bottle Hill (The), Tubwell Row, When the Heather’s in Full Bloom, Oh Mirror Mirror, Out There, When Thrushes Sing to Greet the Dawn, I am a Feline Anarchist, Hedger (The), Flight of the Curlew, Slowly Gently Sadly, Banks of the Leven (The), She Walks Alone, Hawthorns are Silent (The), Across the Vale, Celandine and Columbine, Doorways, Twelfth of August (The), Donald Sullivan, Young Brody, By Wolviston Mill, Walls of Old Stockton (The), Time I’ve Been Away (The), Children of the Morning (The), Traveller (The), A Field of White Stones, Old William,  Wrecking Gangs (The), Strabane, Green Coats and Beagles, Wreck of the Jeanne Gougy (The)

Forgotten Songs Remembered
with illustrations by Graeme Miles

Price £15 + £2 p&p (UK)

 

Songscapes

57 songs including Along the Guisborough Road, Sad February, Coronach for a Young Man, Farndale Daffodils, The Woeful Scarecrow, When the Tees Ran Warm, Horumaryue, The Banks of the Tees, My Eldorado, Over Yonder Banks, Sea Coal!, The Shepherd on the Fell, Westerdale, Waiting for the Ferry, Yarm Fair, When the Snows of Winter Fall, When the Green Man Walks the Forest, The Old Man of the Sea.

 

A Selection of Graeme Miles Songs - Robin Dale

Two great  CDs from singer and internationally-renowned photographer Robin Dale. Robin's repertoire consists mostly of Graeme's songs. He and Graeme formed a formidable duo travelling the country for many years with their slide show of Robin's photographs which illustrated Graeme's songs and prose work and Robin's knowledge of his work is encyclopaedic. The CDs contain many of Graeme's best known songs and also some previously not recorded. On CD1 recordings include Over Yonder Banks, Yarm Fair, Sea Coal, Ironmaking Town and The Dunes of the Humber. On CD2 you will find Farndale Daffodils, Goodbye Dearest Clara, The Crying Crakes and Is My Love Still Sleeping?  In all, 26 songs, 13 on each CD. £10 each + £2 postage and packaging.

 

Purple Acres - A Journey Across The North York Moors and The Cleveland Hills, performed by The Ironopolis Singers
This new double CD of Graeme's songs by The Ironopolis Singers is especially poignant for them, it being the final album that Graeme contributed to.

This collection of wonderful songs covers the rural landscape of moor and hill so beloved by Graeme, completed after some very difficult and heart-rending circumstances not the least of which was Graeme's lingering illness and subsequent death in 2013.

The album's blurb tells the story of the making of this CD but huge thanks are due to Ken Hall for his determined work to complete and for having the brilliant idea of including Graeme singing some of the songs.

As with Songs Of Ironopolis, Graeme performs all narrations. Songs include Horumarye, The Hawthorns Are Silent, The Stonebreaker, Along The Guisborough Road, Slowly, Gently, Sadly. Pretty Meg Of Westerdale, In Praise Of  Barrelled Beer, Looks Like Summer's Nigh (Exercise 69).'

This is a real collector's album.

Price £12 plus £2 postage and packaging.


 

Songs of Ironopolis double CD of industrial songs with 

narration written and spoken by Graeme Miles

Price £12 + £2 p&p (UK)

For more details, contact ailsamackenzie@aol.com