Mike Harding

Mike Harding (born 23 October 1944) is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet, broadcaster and multi-instrumentalist. Harding has also been a photographer, traveller, filmmaker and playwright.
Early life and education.
Harding's father, Louis Arthur "Curly" Harding, a navigator in the RAF, was killed in the Second World War, a month before his son's birth. Harding is of Irish Catholic ancestry on his mother's side.
Flight Sergeant Louis Arthur Harding (RAF/574158) was a prewar RAF airman. A navigator on Lancasters, his No. 9 Squadron RAF aircraft LL901 (WS:V) was lost on an operation to Munster, 23/24 September 1944. From the seven crew, six were killed and lie at Holten General Cemetery in the Netherlands. The seventh airman evaded capture.
Harding was educated at St Anne's, Crumpsall, and St Bede's College, Manchester. He has written of the abuse inflicted on pupils at St Bede's, a Roman Catholic school. After a varied career as a road digger, dustbin man, schoolteacher, steel erector, bus conductor, boiler scaler and chemical factory worker, he took a degree in English and Education at the University of Manchester.
Professional career.
Harding began performing as a folk singer and as a member of several local Manchester bands in the 1960s, making his first recordings for the Topic label. He began telling jokes between songs, eventually extending them into longer humorous anecdotes which became the main focus of his act. He released his first album, "A Lancashire Lad", in 1972, followed by "Mrs 'Ardin's Kid" in 1974. In 1975, the single release of "The Rochdale Cowboy" reached No. 22 in the UK Singles Chart, and brought him national attention.
As a stand-up comic he made several series for the BBC and appeared on numerous television and radio programmes, including two series of travel films in Ireland and the Appalachian Mountains of America. He also played rock and roll with his band, the Stylos, with the Lowe Brothers. He has had many albums and singles released, whilst the latter included "Man 'nited Song".
As well as comedy, he has released albums of serious songs, most notably "Bombers' Moon", the title track of which tells of his father's death. The album also includes "The Accrington Pals" and cover versions of Bruce Springsteen's "Factory" and Eric Bogle's "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda".
Harding composed the music scores for "DangerMouse", "Count Duckula" (he also sang the main and end titles with Manchester native Doreen Edwards), "The Reluctant Dragon" and "The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship" for Cosgrove Hall Films.
As well as being an acclaimed musician and comedian, he wrote "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac", a humorous A to Z book; two collections of anecdotes, jokes and songs entitled "The Unluckiest Man in the World" and "The 14½ Pound Budgie"; and a comedy/thriller/fantasy, "Killer Budgies".
His other books include a series covering aspects of his interest in British folklore and history – "The Little Book of the Green Man", "The Little Book of Stained Glass", "The Little Book of Gargoyles", and "The Little Book of Misericords"; and the loosely factual autobiography, "You Can See the Angel's Bum, Miss Worswick!" He has also read two of his short stories for "Afternoon Story" on BBC Radio 4. In 1986, Harding wrote the foreword to Barry Pilton's book, "One Man and His Bog".
He made a series of fourteen short films on minority religions in England for the BBC's "Heaven and Earth" show. Harding has presented the annual BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, and from 1997 to 2012 he presented the weekly BBC Radio 2 flagship folk and roots programme, "The Mike Harding Show". His last show was on 26 December 2012. According to Mark Radcliffe, who took over Radio 2's "Folk Show", Harding had left reluctantly, stating that the BBC had "sold the folk world down the river". Four days later, on 30 December 2012, Harding launched his own internet radio show, called "The Mike Harding Folk Show" broadcast at 5pm every Sunday and available as a podcast and on iTunes afterwards. The show went on a very short break during November and December 2017, after 252 regular weekly episodes, with a Christmas episode #253 published in December 2017 and the next episode (#254) published on 24 February 2018. Thereafter, commencing on 18 March 2018, Harding was back with a regular monthly slot. On 4 October 2022, after 309 shows, Harding announced that #309 was his final show.
Harding is a dedicated hillwalker and a former president, and now life vice president of the Ramblers' Association. He wrote, until a new format was sought for the magazine in 2008, a regular column for hiking magazine "The Great Outdoors" and campaigned for 'Right to Roam' legislation in the United Kingdom. He is one of the patrons of the Wensleydale Railway, a group set up to re-open the once mainly derelict line between Northallerton and Garsdale in Yorkshire, near where he now lives.
He is also the patron of Settle Stories, a charity based in Settle, North Yorkshire, that promotes traditional storytelling and runs the annual Settle Storytelling Festival. Harding contributed to a promotional leaflet for the Settle tourist board.