Very sad to hear of the passing yesterday morning (following a nasty fall and pneumonia) of my friend, Mike Sparks, who would have been 80 in June this year.

As a singer/songwriter, Mike had been around folk clubs in North London for more years than he cared to remember. He was, until June 2017, a resident singer and booking organiser at the Herga Folk Club and regularly performed at other venues.
Mike's song writing career began in the late 1980s since when a number of his songs have passed into the hands of others such as the late Johnny Collins; Graeme Knights; Lynne Heraud and Pat Turner; Tom and Barbara Brown and Tom Lewis. His songs are regularly heard in Club and Festival singarounds across the country and in places further afield such as Holland and the USA.
More recently Mike was a founder member of Barnet Hill Lifeboat Crew who perform shanties and sea songs for charity.
Mike was also a published playwright whose modern interpretations of Holy Week Mystery Plays have been regularly toured around Churches in North London and have been performed across the country as well as in Eire and Spain. Mike also presented Singing Sydney – the work of Sydney Carter, and wrote a presentation entitled The Glorious Madness which provided a different view of the Great War of 1914-1918 and featured songs written and performed by Les Sullivan.

Mike was awarded the MBE in the 2000 New Year’s Honours list for his services to youth work.