Sam Sweeney

In 2009 Sam Sweeney bought a violin in Oxford. It had all the appearance of a new instrument but the label inside gave the date 1915 and the name Richard S Howard.

Research revealed that the violin had been made - but never finished - by a luthier and some-time music hall performer from Leeds called Richard Spencer Howard. He had been conscripted in 1915 at the age of 35 and two years later was killed during the battle of Messines Ridge. The pieces were given to his daughter Rose in a manila envelope, as a memory of her father. She kept them all her life. On her death they were sent to an auction house. The parts were bought and the violin was finished by luthier Roger Claridge in 2007. The fiddle was then placed in the window of an Oxford music shop where it was spotted by Sam.

Discovery of the history has inspired Sam to create a multi-media performance telling the story of the fiddle which took nearly 100 years to complete to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I.