A Balham singer and songwriter is bringing his musical inspired by the First World War to the Bedford pub, writes Sophia Sleigh.

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The Bedford in Balham 

Tom Moriarty will perform his musical 14-18 for the first time on Remembrance Sunday.

Moriarty says: "It's a bit different to writing an album however it was great to explore writing of a different kind, with orchestral arrangement and where you have more time to tell a story instead of within the lyrics of one song.

"14-18 is a tale of love and war as told through the eyes of a couple who are separated and then united by the First World War. Where 14-18 differs from many war stories is that it tells, equally, the story of the wife left behind as well as the story of the soldier. In that way we witness the experience on the battle front and also the home front. 

"We see how war strips people of their initial excitement and exuberance for war. It shows through music how war corrodes and destroys the soul but ultimately how the human spirit and hope keeps them going on until they are united and wish to put the past behind them."

The work is also inspired by Harry Patch, the last surviving British soldier to fight in the trenches. 

Moriarty went to meet him a few years ago, at the spritely age of 109, and was the last person to interview him before he died two years later.

He adds: "We talked for a couple of hours and he told me about his experience of war, the smell of it, the sound of it, the whispering in the trenches. I could see it in his eyes; it was almost like being there.

"I will never forget Harry and what he told me about fighting in the trenches. It was like talking to history." 

Tom Moriarty at The Bedford; Bedford Hill, Balham; Sunday, November 9; 7.30pm - 9.30pm; Sun Nov 9; £15; thebedford.co.uk