Hark! the Sound of Stories
with Roxanne De Bastion and Fraser Lambert,
at Darlington Library.

Hosted by Tracks Darlington

On one of those bleak winter evenings, common at this time of the year, Darlington Library offered its own kind of refuge: soft light, a full room of forty or so people, and a promise of stories woven into song. Hark, the Sound of Stories, Tracks Darlington’s series, celebrating music inspired by literature, closed its 2025 run with an evening centred on families and memories, present and past.

Fraser Lambert took the stage first, boots abandoned for socks, a can of pale ale at his feet and what appeared to be more than a year’s worth of grief resting on his shoulders. He spoke honestly about losing his father and watching his mother slip further into the iron grip of Alzheimer’s. What followed wasn’t a performance so much as another step towards acceptance. Gordon Hackett opened with ‘Little Robin’, a poem by John F Connor, threaded with memories Fraser shared of his Mum, and then the songs began to flow.

‘Light the Road’ mixed sorrow with a quiet hope, the kind of song that lifts its head despite everything. ‘Unscathed’, written just after his father’s death, with the lyrics literally falling from his pen. Then came ‘Pink Carnations’, tender, humorous, full of the odd coincidences families carry, followed by ‘Ten Lifetimes’, apparently untitled, and a love song so raw that naming it on the spot felt impossible for anyone in the room.

Throughout, Fraser seemed to inhabit that delicate space where grief and gratitude meet. He called it therapy, and the audience seemed to recognise the truth in that. His final stretch included ‘Renaissance’, a Sunderland release around a year ago, and ‘Sunshine in Your Love’, a heart felt attempt at pushing winter away. His closing track, the tongue-in-cheek ‘Teesside Christmas’, was wonderfully off-kilter, drawing attention to the delightful mix of smog, parmos, and even an inserted reference to Darlington, especially for this event. Beneath the humour was the same warmth that threaded his whole set, a reminder that family anchors us, even when the waters rise.

After the break, Roxanne de Bastion altered the room’s air entirely. Stillness settled. The library shelves seemed to lean in. Her performance wove together her songs, a reading by Sarah Wilson, and the crackling, intimate recordings of her grandfather, Stephen, a pianist who survived two concentration camps, lived as a refugee, and left behind tapes that would one day become Roxanne’s incredible book, ‘The Piano Player of Budapest.

Sarah’s reading from October 1942 was enough to tighten every throat in the room; displacement, fear, resilience. Roxanne opened with a song anchored by the line “you cannot erase me or take it back”, a lyric that hovered long after the final chord faded. ‘Wasteland’ followed, exploring the brutality of memory and the strange normality built atop places where people once took their last steps, with ‘Run’ honouring Stephen’s flight into uncertainty, a tender tribute to perseverance.

What made the evening extraordinary was Roxanne’s bravery in letting us into her archive. The recordings of Stephen speaking, laughing, playing piano; the fragments of parties, love letters, family moments, layered with her grandmother’s humming. The room held its breath while we listened, carried back to these incredible, sometimes incomprehensible times. These weren’t just artefacts; they were living memories.

Her translated version of Stephen’s once-famous Viennese love song, ‘Remember Me’, was luminous, conjuring a dance hall lit with candles and possibility. On keyboards, she played ‘If I Am a Star, You Are the Heavens’, reminding us that grief and love are inseparable, two sides of the same coin. Later songs, ‘Heavy Lifting’ and the nostalgic ‘Train Tracks’ (a nod to the event’s railway sponsors), grounded the set in her own journey as an artist, shaped by both inherited talent and raison d’etre.

Delightfully, she closed with a two-minute punk song about white blood cells; unexpected, definitely out of the evening’s mode, chaotic, charming, and exactly what the evening needed to break its emotional spell and let us breathe again. The audience, shy at first, joined in the chant, ending the night on a strangely joyful note.

What lingered long after the applause was the sense of being trusted, by both musicians, with something intimate, heavy and precious. Tracks Darlington managed to create a space where community, creativity, and vulnerability sat side by side, as if we were sat in someone’s living room, to borrow Roxanne’s words. And in the bleakness of winter, that is its own kind of salvation.

Huge thanks to the Tracks Darlington team, Fran kept the evening moving, Sarah with her thoughtful reading, and Rob, for the sound.

28th November 2025