Sunday Feature: Our Birmingham Fathers

Three people across Birmingham are grieving the recent loss of their musician fathers. Each is busy piecing together their father's life story and breathing new life into their musical legacy. Their parents were from different musical worlds: Lionel Martin, the Jamaican saxophonist known as Saxa, who found fame with the 80s ska group The Beat; David Hindley, a composer who spent much of his life creating intricate classical piano music from recorded bird song; and Paul Murphy - singer, songwriter and mentor to many musicians in the city. Their children come together, from three different areas of Birmingham, to tell each other their father's story and talk about their search for healing through music and memory. Francilla Martin remembers seeing her father on Top of the Pops, meeting David Bowie, entrancing everybody. Saxa was a huge personality and a mentor to a generation of Birmingham musicians, but never gave interviews. In writing his story she hopes to make sense of her own relationship with him. Mark Murphy can't yet bring himself to listen to some of his dad's music. 'Grief takes its own time' he says, as he thinks of his dad's early days with Van Morrison and Lemmy, of unreleased recordings, and what might happen to the amazing, elaborate tree-house from where Paul Murphy streamed folk concerts around the world. Jo Hindley nursed her father David through years of dementia. In coming to terms with her loss, she is also beginning to understand and champion his unique gifts as a composer. Immersed in his vast archive, she is also dramatically changing her own life to confront the loss of the natural world that was his inspiration