With thanks

Appreciation

This site exists because of the people who took the time to help find things, send things, answer questions and generally be amazing. The Folk Music world is a very kind and friendly group who really want to help, so this is just to say thank you to everyone involved in the project.

The Wall of Thanks

  • Max Bolch

    Co-Creator

    This entire project happened because Max got in touch with Davoc and Jenny Bradley about new Swan Arcade recordings he had found. This triggered Max and Davoc to start digging and finding more and more material. Without Max we wouldn't have this project, the gig listings (of which there are many more to come) or the energy to keep on going and get this to the point of release. Eternal thanks must be given to Max for his drive to discover!

  • Davoc Bradley (Brady)

    Co-Creator

    Davoc's background as a software engineer meant that taking a project of this scale and being able to turn it into a highly interactive website for people to use would have been far more difficult otherwise. Davoc is the son of Dave and Heather Brady so has contact with a great many people in the Folk world and was able to reach out to them and ask for favours, information and collaboration.

  • Jenny Bradley (Brady)

    Co-Creator

    Jenny is the daughter of Heather and Dave Brady and has been really supportive, providing information, photos and names of people who might know things. This has allowed us to gather and find more information than we would have otherwise. She has also been incredibly supportive when things have been difficult!

With thanks to

  • Jim & Georgina Boyes

    Jim is a founding member of Swan Arcade and Georgina was the manager of the group for many years and was always referred to as the fourth Swan by Heather and Dave. Jim sang on all the studio albums and sang the longest with Dave and Heather. They have provided us with information, ideas and master recordings of Swan Arcade's last two albums.

  • Brian Miller

    Brian was the third bass singer of the group, replacing Royston Wood. Brian provided us with information about the group and amazingly the recording from Penicuik Folk Festival which he hosted in 1989, which is a fantastic recording of the group.

  • Hannah Wood

    The daughter of Royston Wood who was the second bass singer of Swan Arcade. Hannah is an amazing jewellery manufacturer and she kindly allowed us access to recordings, and licensed their use for the website.

    Hannah's Website

  • Jimmy Hutchison

    Not only is Jimmy a wonderful musician and a good friend of Heather, Dave, Jim and Georgina, he also provided us with contacts to get St Andrews music, Tønder film footage and confirmation of stories about the group (Including the amazing Dubliners' first album information).

  • Andrew Watson

    Andrew recorded most of the gigs that took place at the St Andrews Folk Club some of which can be found on his YouTube account. Some great sessions to listen to on there! Andrew kindly provided recordings of both the St Andrews Folk Club gigs, one with Jim Boyes and one with Royston Wood.

  • Elly & René Zwakhoven

    Great friends of Dave, Heather and Jim they performed on the Matchless album and ran the Reek 1981 folk festival which we have a recording of. They shared with us photos and memories, adding a huge amount to the content of the website.

  • Birgitte Thomsen - Tønder Music Archive

    Birgitte manages the Tønder Music Archive and was kind enough to provide us with the programmes and the live film recording of the Danish TV footage of Swan Arcade live in Tønder, 1986.

    tonderfestival.dk

  • Rod Sinclair

    Kindly introduced to us, Rod is a great folk musician and also compèred the Tønder festival gigs that Swan Arcade played in 1986. He kindly provided us with the link up with Birgitte Thomsen of the Tønder Music Archive.

    Rod Sinclair Website

  • Johan Greeuw

    Johan is a fantastic folk musician who has an archive of music recording that he kindly was able to share with us. The Reek 1981 festival gig was expertly mastered and provided by Johan. Please check out his other recordings on his YouTube account.

    Johan's YouTube

  • Ian Anderson

    Ian was the editor of Folk Roots and, before that, The Southern Rag, for the entire time each magazine was in existence. A huge figure in the folk music world, he incredibly kindly allowed us to use the Folk Roots interviews and reviews verbatim on the website.

  • Ian Lynch - Lankum

    Ian is in one of the world's best folk groups, Lankum. He also hosts a podcast which is great called Fire Draw Near, playing fantastic tunes! He was kind enough to create a curated playlist of his favourite Swan Arcade songs.

    Lankum's Website Fire Draw Near Podcast

  • Phil Cross - The Black Diamond Folk Club

    Phil is part of the running of the Black Diamond Folk Club in Birmingham, a great club that you should definitely go and visit! He kindly provided us with gig listings from Black Diamond Folk Club and helped promote the new website.

    Black Diamond Folk Club

  • Tom Wright - Powered Flight Music

    Tom is a great musician and drummer and also runs Powered Flight Music. He was super helpful and gave us multiple links and contacts to help us grow the understanding of the group.

    Powered Flight Music

  • Kyle Thomason - Hull History Centre

    Kyle kindly provided us with 2 recordings from the archive at Hull History Centre.

    Hull History Centre

  • Colin Harper

    One of the most prolific writers about the British folk scene, well-known for his Bert Jansch bio Dazzling Stranger, who currently helps artists reclaim their rights for their Trailer Records LPs. Colin brought us into contact with various people who provided invaluable help in this project.

  • Mike Butler

    Leading expert on Bill Leader, the person who produced Swan Arcade's first album and contributed the brass to their second. He provided us with interesting background information and kindly proof-read our texts.

  • Greg Johnson - University of Mississippi

    Greg, Head of Special Collections, Blues Curator and Professor at the University of Mississippi provided us with the recording from University Folk Club with Brian Miller.

  • Christy Moore

    Christy was really helpful in providing more information about his time with Dave and Heather and gave us some lovely stories.

  • Cath Ingham

    Cath corrected and added information about the early years of the group with Jim, all really important to get right. Thanks Cath!

  • Trish Taylor

    Trish provided us with fantastic photos of the electric band and also biography information about Chris.

  • Emma Bradley

    Emma has been hugely supportive of this project, enabling Davoc to work long into the night to get the website built, newspapers scoured, music found and has also added lots of ideas for how to approach things. Thank you!

About this site

How this came about

Back in March 2026 Max got in touch with Davoc and Jenny Bradley (Heather and Dave Brady's children) as he had found recordings of Swan Arcade with Royston Wood. Following a great video call between Max and Davoc, the pair started to look for more Swan Arcade material. It turned out there was a lot! This immediately triggered the idea to create a chronological website which would allow fans to easily find and listen to music by Swan Arcade, see photos, read reviews and interviews and generally just enjoy an important part of the British Folk Revival.

Following this ideas came thick and fast, and it quickly became apparent that there was a lot of love in the folk music world for Swan Arcade and people really wanted to help us. This led to collaborations which we will be sharing over time on the website, peers and fans sharing their memories and their favourite songs from the Swan Arcade back catalogue.

This project has been very enjoyable, and despite myself (Davoc) having grown up listening to Swan Arcade, I can honestly say that I didn't realise quite how many different songs, or how many gigs they actually performed across the 20 years they performed for. It's been a great insight into a part of my parents' lives that I didn't fully understand until now. I learned things like my dad being present during the recording of the Dubliners' first album, mum and dad singing on Mr Fox's album and then singing that same song over the rest of their career.

Everyone whose name appears on the wall above lent something — a memory, music, an introduction, photos — all things that we couldn't have found without them. Thank you, all of you.

— with thanks, Davoc & Max