Name: Britain's Dreaming
Duration: P00H02M01S
Description: Gaz's most performed poem, including in London, Cardiff and as a show taster on the pavements of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. It came in a lyrical rush just after the original show was written and was then used at the start of the show but should always have closed it.

Britain's Dreaming

from Last of the Iceni: The Story of Boudicca by Peacock's Tale Musical Storytelling

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about

Gaz's most performed poem, including in London, Cardiff and as a show taster on the pavements of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. It came in a lyrical rush just after the original show was written and was then used at the start of the show but should always have closed it.

lyrics

Julius Caesar
and the Roman Empire
couldn't conquer
the blue sky"
and I think of you, Boudicca,
with that same sense
of singing triumph
even though your glory days
were under grey skies
and short-lived
and weren't innocent
or cornflower-pretty
as some Celtic blue summer
and had more to do
with this Norfolk flint
and stubborn soil
than an air of heaven
and even though
Decianus Catus
and the Roman Empire
seized the sunrise
of your three easy wins
as if seizing the flames
of your famous red hair,
and even though
Suetonius Paulinus
and the Roman Empire
crushed your country
if not your body
in his square Roman fist
sowed harvests of hunger
rubbed decades of salt
in your people's wounds

the old word
buddug
still sings in my Welsh blood,
in the Norfolk winds
off this unresting sea

buddug:
buddig:

victory

credits

from Last of the Iceni: The Story of Boudicca, released June 18, 2021
Photograph of Gaz performing (and simultaneously broadcasting) a section of the show at Lincoln, its second performance there (the first, in 1998, was the full show). The 1998 Cardiff performance was also filmed for Japanese TV.
first published in Britain's Dreaming Frontier, 1998.

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Peacock's Tale Musical Storytelling image

Peacock's Tale Musical Storytelling Sedgeford, UK

It's all right, folks, we're married. A marriage of melody and rhythm ( flirting with harmony & timbre.) Old married woke folk, indie, Norfolk noir, beat poems, ghazals & Americana for the world from NW Norfolk. Maz lead & harmony vocals, acoustic guitar. Gaz lead & harmony vocals, drum & bass. Traditional tunes with contemporary beats.
garethcalway.blogspot.com/p/doin-different.html ... more

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