Durham Town — Roger Whittaker
Roger Whittaker’s “Durham Town” achieves a rare feat — it makes you nostalgic for a place you’ve never visited.
At any rate, I hadn’t visited it when I first heard “Durham Town” on the radio many years ago. I have been there since and it’s a beautiful city in the north-east of England with one of the world’s finest cathedrals, and one of its most eminent universities, among its many attractions.
But hearing “Durham Town” on the car radio while my dad drove us to school some time in the 1970s, I instantly felt nostalgic for a place I had never visited and sentimental for a time long before I was born.
As it happens, “Durham Town” isn’t about the city of Durham, particularly. The song is more about the people and experiences the singer remembers from his time there…
Back in nineteen forty-four
I remember Daddy walking out the door
Mama told me he was going to war, he was leaving
Leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving me
Reading this today, 1944 seems like a very long time ago. But in 1969, when “Durham Town” was released, it was only 25 years previously.
In 1969, most adults would still remember the war years themselves, and would have heard plenty of first-hand stories about fathers, grandfathers, brothers and cousins who had gone to war…many of them sadly never to…
