Sam Sweeney

Eight years ago Sam Sweeney, fiddle player with folk big band Bellowhead, bought a violin in Oxford with the with date 1915, the name Richard S. Howard and the words 'Violin No. 6, Made in the Great War’ inside.

Research revealed that the violin had been started, but never finished, by an amateur luthier and some-time music hall performer from Leeds called Richard Howard.

Conscripted in 1915 at the age of 35, he was killed two years later at the battle of Messines near Ypres. The fiddle inspired Sam to develop a unique show to retell Richard Howard’s story.

The show brings the reality of the First World War to life through the eyes of an ordinary man, his family and his comrades using story, music and film as well as playing the actual fiddle that Richard Howard started but never had the chance to finish.

Since bringing the show to the City Varieties in 2014, not only has Sam Sweeney been voted as Musician Of The Year by the BBC Folk Awards in 2015; another Richard Howard violin, ‘No 2’, has come to light. With pictures and memorabilia of Richard himself, the story behind this fiddle continues to unfold bringing previously unknown descendants and relatives together for the first time at shows.