Show Of Hands 'Country Life' becomes soundtrack for rural fears...

Steve Knightley of Show Of Hands penned Country Life – performed by himself and multi-instrumentalist partner Phil Beer – and its release caused ripples from radio stations to commentators, with its astute pinpointing of all the current negative issues of country living.

Already applauded by the likes of former BBC political editor Andrew Marr, BBC Rural Affairs correspondent Tom Heap and political agitator and singer songwriter Billy Bragg, its lyrics ask “what went wrong” with country life, railing about “no trains, no jobs, no shops, no pubs” and “empty shells of holiday homes”.

Now it has been selected as the perfect soundtrack for the film Hidden Voices – Rural Disadvantage, made by the Commission for Rural Communities – a division of the Countryside Agency - to illustrate the hopes and concerns of people living and working in the countryside.

Produced by the Rural Media Company, a film crew travelled across England meeting people in rural areas, recording their views and experiences.

People living in the Peak District, Suffolk, Norfolk, Sussex and Herefordshire were interviewed for the film. Says Jacqui Cuff, CRC project manager for the film: “We chose to use parts of Country Life because it perfectly captures the issues we found when we carried out our study of rural disadvantage and collected people’s first-hand accounts of the problems they faced on issues such as lack of jobs, the closing of shops, post offices and pubs and a lack of affordable housing.

“The film accompanies a report detailing facts and figures about rural disadvantage and will be shown to ministers, MPs and rural stakeholders to emphasise that concerted action needs to be taken now to ensure we address the needs of people in rural areas.”

Living in Devon, both Knightley and Beer are keenly aware of the problems experienced by rural communities. Recently they backed a bid to save a mid Devon post office from threatened closure, by performing a fund-raising gig.

Steve Knightley, who will attend the launch, says: “We are delighted to be able to support this film which highlights many of the issues we flagged up in the Country Life track. Fans immediately seemed to empathise with its sentiments – now I hope it helps get the message home to the people who can really do something about it – the country’s decision makers.”

The Show of Hands song has also been used as a backing track for a recently released partner film by the CRC, Rural Housing – A Place in the Countryside, which recorded the voices of over 800 people who took part in a Rural Housing inquiry – from young families in need of housing to businesses finding it hard to recruit to local rural jobs.

For this film, people in eight English regions were interviewed, including Kingsbridge in the South West – one of 40 English place names mentioned in Show of Hands’s new album, Witness.