I have been passionate about language and literature as long as I can remember.  It is no surprise that I ended up choosing to study the subject at Manchester University and then taught English as a second language for 32 years of my working life!

I had my first poem published in the Manchester Evening News when I was eight years old and was always writing short stories and poetry throughout my life.  Despite the fact that I worked as a marketing and PR professional and writing was a huge part of this, very few people knew about my creative writing hobby – until around 2010, when I shared a few poems with a friend.  I then also started to try my hand at song-writing.  It was not long after that I met the wonderful Charlotte Maxwell, who invited me to join the last few of her funded workshops entitled Mixed Tapes.  These workshops were aimed at people who of mixed heritage and it was only then I realised that a lot of my writing was about the same theme.  My first open mic experience was at Chapter One Books at the end of the workshops and I enjoyed it immensely.

In 2017 I was invited to perform my poetry at two festivals:  Women Hold up Half the Sky at Alexandra Park in Whalley Range and Through the Mill in Ancoats.

Also in 2017, I was also commissioned two write two songs for Tram Tracks – an extensive arts project brought about through collaboration between Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall and Manchester Metrolink.  Songs and spoken word performances were composed for all 93 stops on the Metrolink network.  I was asked to compose songs for Westwood and Bury stops.  I invited two female musician friends to work with me – Sarah Sayeed contributed Bengali lyrics to the Westwood song and Carol Jason worked with me to research and arrange the Bury song.  We performed them at the Bridgewater Hall as part of the project.  You can find the lyrics below.

SONG FOR WESTWOOD:    The Red Rose & The Shapla Flower

Get off the tram at Westwood

A posy’s what you’ll find

Where Churchill spoke, there’s Northern folk,

And flowers intertwined

Get off the tram at Westwood

You’ll find a Shapla Flower

Hard working men from Sylhet

Came here for Cotton’s power.

The cotton flower is industry

In a setting of red rose

The Shapla flower, the people, and

Westwood the place they chose

Women and children followed them

So the men were not alone

With coloured silks and spices

They made Westwood their home

The cotton flower’s died off now,

The red rose is no more

But still you’ll find the Shapla flower

In Westwood’s very core

So take a trip to Westwood

If you have a spare half hour

On a roundabout near Tesco

You’ll find the Shapla Flower

Link to recorded version: Tram Tracks: Westwood by
Geli Berg and Sarah Sayeed – YouTube

SONG FOR BURY: The Legendary People of Bury – to follow!

During COVID I worked on an Arts Council England funded project alongside two other female singer-songwriters, Sarah Sayeed and Tiki Black, through Lingua Franca World Community CIC.  We each wrote two and arranged two songs and then worked with some of the finest professional world musicians currently residing in North West England to produce final tracks to perform on an online concert in November 2020.  My two songs were That Day That You Left – a Latino song and Tangled in Dreadlocks – a Reggae song.

That Day That You Left – YouTube

Tangled In Dreadlocks – YouTube