Songwriting Project Encourages Port Talbot Residents to Explore Local Heritage Through Music

A community project in Port Talbot, south Wales, is inviting residents to set stories from the area’s past to music, as part of an initiative run in partnership with Wales’s folk arts organisation, according to The Guardian.

The project, called Cân y Cymoedd (When Valleys Sing), brings together community groups and schools to research local history and turn it into original songwriting, the report said.

Liz Puleston-Jones, who grew up in Wales, told The Guardian that although she was familiar with the country’s tradition of storytelling and folk music, it had not previously felt connected to her own life in Swansea.

While researching the history of the area for the project, Puleston-Jones said she discovered the story of Isabel Thomas, a 14-year-old girl who, in the 1940s, left school and lied about her age in order to work at a tin plate works to help support her family, according to the report.

The Guardian article did not provide further details on the project’s scale, funding, or the number of participants involved, nor did it specify additional stories or songs produced as part of the initiative.