Remembering Vin Garbutt - Teeside Troubadour

Vin Garbutt

David Alton writes: It's just over a year since Vin Garbutt died. If anything, since his death, his brilliant protest songs, never to be heard on mainstream media, have acquired a new generation of followers.

His passionate belief in justice, including the right to life of "lost innocents" is reflected in the powerful lyrics of prophetic songs that run counter to a society that ends the life of a child in the womb every three minutes. Why did he risk being "no-platformed" by the music industry and media? Because, as he sings:

"I have to do my bit, I cannot bear those fascist views,
And I'll defend the baby boy or baby girl whose death they'd choose"

In Dish of Glass he also challenges laws that have allowed destructive experiments on millions of British human embryos

"There's a doctor hovering over me, educated
but morally blind, can't he see,
that my size and shape he himself used to be?
I'm dying.

My humanity's questioned but only by those
who seek to impose their will and dispose
of my unique genetic code. There's no-one like me."

In Lyndahe upholds the value of every life and tells the story of a woman who refused to let her disabled son be one of the babies whose lives are ended because of disability - including 90% of all babies with Down's Syndrome.

Here are four songs - now available on You Tube - which should be shared with others.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXvCtJYSHu8 - Lynda

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3DyO9sB4iE - Dish of Glass

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZOV_yOyRJ4 - Not For the First Time

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYVoIQEXCv8 - When The Tide Turns