Throughout the decades, folk singers have immortalized the lives of common figures, including sailors, rogues, and working-class heroes.
Modern musicians have recently sung the tales of a new group of folk heroes.
They include a long-serving general practitioner who nearly succumbed to Covid, a soup kitchen director, and a woman who established a charity in honor of her late daughter.
The new tracks feature five individuals from the northeast of England.
Dr. Iftikhar Lone, a general practitioner in Middlesbrough for 44 years, was in charge of the Covid vaccination deployment in his region.
In 2020, he spent nine days in intensive care after contracting the virus.
The 75-year-old states, “When I contracted Covid in the very first wave when there was no therapy, I spent nine days in the intensive care unit (ICU) and another seven days in the hospital before I was released, having lost 16 pounds and been lucky to be alive.”
“I am unaware of the expense of that treatment. You enter, receive therapy, and leave without worrying about payment. And I think that’s fantastic. Therefore, the lyrics of the song state, “Free NHS for all.”
Sean Cooney of the Stockton-on-Tees band The Young’uns has combined his love for the National Health Service and Middlesbrough Football Club into the song Doctor Boro.
Dr. Lone continues, “I was amazed that he covered everything we discussed. He truly captured every detail.”
Only one thing in the song did not occur, he notes. In 2006, when he met the Queen to receive an MBE, her handbag did not feature the football motto Up The Boro, abbreviated as UTB.
Cooney states that working with Dr. Lone was “very enjoyable.”
He says, “He’s quite a character with a dry sense of humor, so half the time you’re not sure if he’s joking or not.” I have no idea what his patients think!
However, expressing the doctor’s life in a song posed a “problem” on how to incorporate healthcare and football.
Then, he states, “something clicked.” “I thought, let’s give him a personality. Let’s instantly combine these two elements in the title and character, and call him Doctor Boro.”
Cooney believes that the resulting song is “very contemporary and resonant.”
“Dr. Lone discusses the enormous issue facing the NHS at the moment. And there’s a line in the song where I say, ‘Summer has turned into winter.'”
This was consistent with what he told me in his office in September. It’s like a winter crisis, but it occurs year-round.
Wednesday’s episode of the Radio 2 Folk Show with Mark Radcliffe will include the updated renditions.
