FOLK award winners will be playing a concert in Maldon next week.

MacTheatre will be bringing The Young ‘Uns to Maldon Town Hall next Friday, who will perform their show “The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff”.

The three piece County Durham band have been twice winners of the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards for Best Group, and recently released their new album “Strangers” and have already hit the headlines by being nominated again in this year’s folk awards for best album and best original track.

“The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff” is a timely tale about a boy who walked out of poverty, a teenager who stood up to racism, a soldier who fought fascism and an old man who inspired a new generation.

In the summer of 1939, as war clouds loomed over Europe, a 19-year old lad from Teesside went to the House of Commons to meet his local MP.

He had just returned from fighting against fascism in the Spanish Civil War (to do so was illegal because of Britain’s policy of non- intervention).

Hearing footsteps coming down the corridor he turned to see the figure of Winston Churchill approaching.

The lad’s MP took the opportunity of introducing him. Churchill looked the teenage soldier up and down, took his cigar out of his mouth, and said: ‘Would young men like you be prepared to fight against Hitler?’

The lad took a deep breath before he answered; ‘Mr Churchill,’ he said, ‘I’ve been fighting Hitler all of my life.’ His name was Johnny Longstaff.

This is the story of his life from the day it began in abject poverty in Stockton-On-Tees in 1919 to that chance meeting with Churchill in 1939.

16 original songs will interweave with the late Johnny’s own recorded voice to tell a remarkable story of one man’s impulse to react to injustice wherever and whenever he saw it.

The band will perform on March 23 at 8pm.

For tickets call 01621 856503 or visit www.mactheatre.org.uk.