JUST surfaced to write this week’s column after a wonderful band gig last night at the Dublin Castle in Camden, the first in London with my brand new “1649” Barnstormer.  

Word is getting around about the fact that we’re moving in uncharted territory — mixing early music and punk with songs and tunes based around the time of the Levellers, Diggers, Ranters and other radical visionaries of the English revolution.

Our substantial audience included a fully kitted out Roundhead re-enactor soldier, an expert on John Milton and Andrew Marvell’s poetry and a bloke who’s written a book about the Commonwealth era of 1649-1660. Plus, of course, the usual wide mix of poetry fans, punk rockers and activists including, I’m happy to say, four old anti-fascist comrades from the gig and street battles of the ‘80s. Ancient and modern indeed.