Paul Rooney - Broken Token

A single female voice sings a folk ballad, inspired by a page found in a Victorian folk song collector’s manuscript from The Box's archives. She sings of waiting in her garden for her ‘dark-eyed sailor’ to return from war, bearing the other half of her broken token, a gimmel ring.

As she waits, three veterans pass, and she asks them: ‘When you were fighting in distant lands, did you think of the home you left?’ In reply to this, the veterans tell of their experiences connecting with home during the Falklands War, Gulf War and War in Afghanistan.

Film footage of suburban garden gates in Plymouth accompanies the sound, revealing, in their individuality, the quiet unpredictability of the ordinary. The garden images represent ‘home’, but also symbolise a more general possibility of redemption, of the potential of the past to return, changed, to renew the present: ‘Each moment of time is a garden gate,’ the song goes, ‘Through it my love may walk.’

Paul Rooney – Broken Token runs for 12 minutes. The Songs of the West manuscript by Sabine Baring-Gould, turned to The Broken Token song page, plus a selection of other materials connected to the commission, will also be on display.

Paul Rooney – Broken Token is part of the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund, a national partnership programme of over 20 artist commissions inspired by the heritage of conflict. Led by Imperial War Museums, the IWM 14-18 NOW Legacy Fund was created following the success of 14-18 NOW, the official UK arts programme for the First World War centenary.

Find out more

• Discover more about artist Paul Rooney.
• Follow Paul Rooney on Instagram.
• Find out more about West Country folk musician Hannah Martin.
• Find out more about Sabine Baring-Gould.