The 2016 Songs for Social Justice Award was won by Tony Eardley for ‘Sally Cross The Water’, announced and performed at the final concert of the National Folk Festival in Canberra on Easter Monday.

Tony’s accompanying notes provide the background to his winning entry:

“Violence against women is as much of a social justice issue as any – which is at last beginning to achieve some public recognition. I was thinking about the reasons women facing domestic violence find it so hard to leave and how the isolation they often feel in these situations contributes to this. The metaphor I use in the song of being trapped on an island is linked with the root of the word ‘isolation’ and that seemed to fit well with the folk genre.”

Sally Cross the Water – Tony Eardley