Viv Hardwick discovers why The Young ‘Uns, from Teesside, are a folk band with a different story to tell

DAVID Eagle, accordionist with award-winning North-East folk band The Young 'Uns, is struggling to remember the last time the trio had a gap in their busy diary to play a major Stockton gig.

"We started at The Sun Inn, and that's when we were 17-year-olds – and that would be 14 years ago now – and first stumbled across folk music in Stockton. That's where we were based and Michael (Hughes) and Sean (Cooney) lived there originally and I came from Hartlepool and every single time we play a North-East gig we get a big supportive crowd. Some of the people who come along have been with us from the start, which is brilliant," he says.

Last year, The Young 'Uns took a Christmas show to Barnard Castle's Witham, but this year they were determined to play Stockton's Arc on Wednesday, December 14, with The Infant Hercules lead by Mike McGrother in support.

"There's something extra special about playing at Christmas and liberating. Our families and friends turn up and it's also good that people have continued to support us and it's not as though they're saying, 'Well The Young 'Uns have sold out now and are not interested in us'.

"We'll have a combination of good old traditional songs, more of the earthy wassailing drinking songs plus our own songs which we tend to link to the social conscience. There are stories about humanity and things like the Christmas truce in the First World War trenches. We've also written another First World War Christmas song which features December 1918 and a beautiful gesture of peace between an English soldier and a German family. There's also one about Dr Kate Stone who announced she was transgender a few years ago and she had an accident where she was attacked by a rampaging deer in the Highlands of Scotland and nearly lost her life.

"She's an incredible scientist, doctor and inventor of all kinds of crazy things like a paper DJ turntable. When the newspapers found out about her accident, it wasn't 'Scientist attacked by deer' and looked at her piecing her life back together, the focus was all on the fact that she used to be a man. They tried to get friends to come out with sensational quotes and things. So, Kate Stone spent her time, when she had to learn to talk again and get her memory back, not convalescing, but challenging the press. She did it in the most peaceful and brilliant way by sitting on the Editors’ Code of the Practice Committee and, in the end, these newspapers printed apologies. The reason it's a Christmas story is that it happened around New Year's Eve about three years ago," says Eagle.

"There will also be a few Christmas classic songs with a Young 'Uns curve ball," he jokes.

The Kate Stone song links to others like Dark Water, focusing on Syrians swimming to safety in Greece; Ghafoor's Bus about a Teessider taking food to refugees and Carriage 12 reflecting on the bravery of two US friends, who saved French train passengers from an attacker.

"I think it's just, for us, that folk music is all about telling stories and there are a lot of universal songs like, 'I did this or that today' and that's fine. But we like to tell real stories and the songs that Sean writes are not abstract and refer to events that actually happened. Carriage 12, that you referred to, about the Americans on the train is a song that rolls on like the train journey... this happened, this happened... but does it in a way that really carries people. We love to tell stories and sing songs about things that are overlooked or we really feel should have a song.

"When we first started out we just sang other people's songs, but the whole idea of folk music is to keep writing about current events because that's the way you remember things. The news often ignores the personal stories, but when you start singing about these people it preserves the story," says Eagle.

The band are hoping to include many of the new songs previously mentioned on an album because none of them have been recorded yet. "We've done this the other way round. But the time we get to record them we will really have bedded the songs in. Normally, the songs come first, you start performing them live and think, 'They're sounding good now, what a shame we've already recorded them'. I think our next album will be the best one we've ever done," he adds.

The Young ‘Uns made history by taking the BBC Folk Awards Best Group for the second year running last year. "I don't know if we can even dream about a hat-trick. It's an honour to win it twice and if we don't manage a third year – and we might not even get nominated – it could seem weird by going from being the best to not even the fifth best. It doesn't work like that and you don't do it for the awards, but having them gives you a profile boost."

Has he and the other two come to terms with packing in careers to start touring the world? "You just generally get on with it and sometimes have to remind yourself what's happened. When we first did Radio 2 I was unbelievable nervous. My heart was pounding and I thought I was going to faint... and this was in the middle of singing. When we did the Simon Mayo Show about the Folk Awards I was fine because you get used to it. But you never want it to be a situation where you're saying, 'Radio 2 again, here we go'."

  • Tickets: £15. Show: 8pm. Box Office: 01642-525199 or arconline.co.uk