Jim Boyes with Belinda O'Hooley
Album: Sensations Of A Wound
Label: No Masters
Tracks: 14
Website: http://www.nomasters.co.uk

Jim Boyes, one third of the highly acclaimed Coope, Boyes and Simpson has an impressive track record in taking part in events such as the "Peace Concerts for Passendale", of commemorations of the First Word War through projects such as the trio's "In Flanders Fields and Michael Murpurgo's "Private Peaceful"."

This time though it takes on an even more personal feel as we are treated to the life of Jim's Grandfather, Robert Riby Boyes from Scarborough.

Having never kept a diary or indeed talked about his experience's it was left to Jim to research Private Boyes' (known as "Croppie" to the family) involvement in the Great War and these songs tell that story.

It's a story told simply and plainly just voice and piano and one burst of accordion. It's all the more effective for the starkness, the sadness implored by Belinda O'Hooley atmospheric piano perfectly played never overstating always supporting and setting the scene.

Not that Croppies story is all sad, a Yorkshire man , newly married he leaves his wife Sally with a baby on the way as he is posted to the Menin Road better known as Passendale. He was soon transferred to Neiuwport on the Belgian Coast and British Stiff Upper Lip humour is reflected in the track "Beside The Seaside".

A posting to Italy takes Croppie further away from Scarborough and the love of his life, a journey which has an element of Kipling in the writing of "The Train Song" as the troops are forced into cattle trucks for the long journey whilst the Officers of course travel First Class.

Transferred back to the Western Front, wounded and taken as a Prisoner Of War when he was left for dead in No Mans Land,. Private Boyes was saved by a German surgeon, shown kindness by a fellow intern and then sent to Switzerland to convalesce until the end of the War.

Jim's storytelling is never over sentimental; he doesn't pull our strings rather he sings with an admiral able restrain it's left to us the listeners to feel for Croppie who was undoubtedly one of the lucky ones despite his serious wound.

Bram Vermeulen's 'Testament' one of two foreign language songs closes the album, reminding us that death isn't the end.

Sensations of a Wound is a thoughtful work that captures the imagination and takes us back one hundred years, by the end we care about Robert Riby Boyes having lived through his eyes if for only a far too brief period of time.

Thank you Jim Boyes for sharing.

Ian Cripps