The John Birmingham Cup is a fun little song writing competition set up in the will of John Birmingham and is designed to encourage song writing. Sheffield has a wonderful history of winning it (seriously - in the 10 years or so it's been running Sheffield residents have won at least 4 times that I know of). The Sheffield Heat (which I guess is designed to stop Sheffield winning too many times by attempting to force us to enter into one heat) was this past Easter weekend.

Why do I mention it? I won the under 25 bracket with "I Lost My Love".

I starting to write this back in 2011, when I started singing in the Sheffield scene. I was heavily inspired by a lot of ballads and wanted to write something like that, but I never had the time to really research the subject matter in question (which was the potato famine). In the end I just sang it out at the Crookes Folk club, without trying to write more about the situation and just liked it.

I really enjoy mystery songs. I've been singing "Nobody Loves You Like Me" for about a year as well, and it perfectly encapsulates the fact that something has happened without telling you anything in particular. It's also been described as "The creepiest 2 minutes of your life" which I'd agree with.

The final is in Whitby on some date that's yet to be announced. If you'll be around for the Whitby Festival - I'll hopefully see you there!