Julia Zemiro’s Home Delivery: July 22

This week Julia Zemiro meets with UK performer Billy Bragg for her latest Home Delivery.

Billy Bragg – also known as the Bard of Barking – and one of contemporary music’s most prolific singer/songwriters, takes Julia home to north east London and the streets of his childhood.

This area was once made up almost entirely of workers from the Ford factory in nearby Dagenham, so Billy collects Julia in a vintage Ford Cortina that very likely would have been manufactured just down the road.

They visit his childhood home which was first owned by his grandfather, and is still in the family today. The years he spent here with his parents and younger brother hold very happy memories for him, and he talks about his father’s love of poetry – especially Rudyard Kipling – and his untimely death in his early 50s.

They then take the short walk to Northbury Primary School – a renovated three story Victorian building where he was a keen student who excelled in English and loved poetry. But he doesn’t speak so kindly of his senior years at a local comprehensive school.

Billy and Julia then return to his former street and meet his old mate, Wiggy, where they talk about their enduring friendship, and how as young teenagers, music brought them together.

Up Station Parade, near the Barking Mall, Billy and Julia throw down a hat and try a bit of busking. They then travel to beautiful Barking Park where Billy spent all his free time as a boy. He describes this as ‘the’ place of his childhood.

9pm Wednesday ABC.