Mark Dowding

Mark was first interested in the songs of Lancashire from a teacher at school in the mid-seventies who lent him a copy of the ground-breaking LP “Deep Lancashire”. Mark started singing these songs at school PTA meetins and eventually fouond huis way to folk clubs in the area. In the early eighties he was asked to become one of the resident singers at Harry Boardman’s folk club at the Unicorn in Manchester.

During a recording session of one of Mark’s CDs at Cock Robin Music, Mark and producer Chris Harvey found that they had a mutual appreciation of Harry Boardman’s work and in January 2004 they released a CD of Mark singing some of Harry’s songs called “ A Mon Like Harry”.

In 1983, Roy Palmer and Harry Boardman collaborated on a project called “The Manchester Ballads”. The result was a folder of 35 ballads pertaining to the city of Manchester collected from various sources around the UK. Following the success of “A Mon Like Harry” and subsequent concerts last year, Mark and Chris felt the time was right to record “The Manchester Ballads” and bring them to the attention of a wider audience. Further research by Chris unearthed original tunes to some of the ballads including “The Calico Printer’s Clerk” and “ The Telegraph Girls in Cannon Street”.

For this year’s Fylde, Mark  Dowding and Syd Calderbank present “The Lancashire Cotton Famine”.