Come Yew In!: The Songbook Free Resource for Schools & Community Groups

The Come Yew In! Songbook contains 13 original songs from the award-winning play, Come Yew In!, which celebrated 700 years of migration to the city of Norwich.

You can download the Songbook here: Come Yew In! songbook FINAL

Researched and written by citizen researchers and local writers, each song brings to life a chapter in Norwich’s very ‘long’ history of sanctuary and refuge: from the stories of medieval Jewish communities and the Strangers, to non-conformist groups and radicals, through to World War Two child evacuees, and modern-day refugees and sanctuary seekers fleeing war and persecution.

Since the success of Come Yew In! in 2017, the Songbook has been used as a school and community resource to support a number of sanctuary projects and initiatives, including Norfolk Welcomes Refugees and Wensum Junior School’s curriculum project, Come Yew In Again! Taken together, these projects have helped to:

to build understanding of the experiences and contributions of refugees and asylum seekers to local history & culture

to introduce children to Norwich’s long and rich history as a place of sanctuary and refuge

to support refugee and asylum-seeking communities

Even though the Come Yew In! Songbook gives voice to stories of sanctuary in Norwich, its key messages and themes speak to the general experience of every person in need of refuge, safety and shelter. We therefore hope that you will use the Songbook as a first step to raising awareness of sanctuary and refugee experience in your school and community groups. We also hope that the Songbook will inspire you to explore and sing stories of sanctuary in your own school and community.

Like history, the Songbook is a living project – let us sing stories of resilience, kindness, acceptance and hope together, and let us sing them loud!

If you would like any more information about the Songbook and its associated projects, or would like advice on how to develop your own songbook, please contact Dr Jeannette Baxter: Jeannette.Baxter@anglia.ac.uk

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Jeannette Baxter

Jeannette Baxter is Research Convenor in the Faculty of Arts, Humanties and Social Sciences at Anglia Ruskin University. Her research and teaching expertise includes many areas of 20th-century and contemporary fiction, including literary and visual responses to war (from WWI to present conflicts), literatures of exile and migration, Anglo-American and European literary Surrealisms, and the relationship between modern and contemporary literature and fascisms. She is Director of ‘New Routes Old Roots', an ARU research hub for students, artists, schools, museums and communities exploring issues of migration, exile and marginalisation through creative-research practices.

Author archive Author website

September 24, 2019

All Mouth No Trousers, Anglia Square, Come Yew In!, Island Project, Norfolk Welcomes, Norwich Schools of Sanctuary, Story Circles, Voices of the Fens, Wensome Come Yew In 2019

New Routes, Old Roots