"...on 2 July 1958, the usually measured radio ambience of the BBC Home Service was rent by a full 20 seconds of catastrophic noise, tearing metal and thundering debris. Recreated in the BBC studios, the explosive collision occurred towards the climax of an hour-long tribute to Axon and the unsung lives of his fellow railway workers. The Ballad Of John Axon was the first of a series created by Ewan MacColl, his 22 year old girlfriend Peggy Seeger, and BBC producer Charles Parker, that shone the microphone like a searchlight into obscure or overlooked sectors of British society: fishermen, teenagers, motorway builders, miners, polio sufferers, even the nomadic travelling community."

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