Thank you Sarah for your support for Jodrell Bank.

But more than that, their support of e-MERLIN and the telescopes at Jodrell Bank means so much more to me, knowing that their music has shaped me over nearly two decades.

For me, these three artists and their music will always be intertwined with my love of Jodrell Bank and how much of a privilege it is to be an astronomer here.

Although the timings don’t quite line up, I have always imagined John Grant singing one of my favourite songs of his like “Marz” or “Queen of Denmark”, with the crowd listening in, whilst only a few 100m away the Mk2 listened into radio waves from across the cosmos for me...

At the same time I was learning how to control the e-MERLIN telescopes and looked up my old project and realised it had been observed during the Bluedot Festival weekend of music and science. One of the acts that weekend was John Grant.

During lockdown, I was listening to Elbow and a version of the song "Kindling (Fickle Flame)" came on. It featured John Grant and I loved his voice and the harmonies with Guy Garvey’s. It’s still one of my favourite songs to this day.

I asked for a rapid follow up with the e-MERLIN array to see if there was any transient radio emission. Unfortunately when I received the data I couldn’t convince myself that I could see a strong enough signal. Soon after I applied for and got my current job at e-MERLIN, starting in April 2020.

Well, shortly before the pandemic I saw an alert for a new dwarf nova that had gone bang. At this point I had completed my PhD at Southampton using e-MERLIN data and I was working as a post doctoral fellow at University of Oxford.

Both bands have a long history with Jodrell Bank, but where does science and John Grant come into this?

These songs incuded "Kingdom of Rust" and "Andalucia", both versions I still adore to this day. Elbow played a concert at Jodrell Bank in 2012 and although I wasn’t there, I’ve heard tales from my colleagues about how amazing that night was.

I still have memories listening to “Newborn” on a school trip as the Sun rose and jamming out to “Kingdom of Rust” at school. But my first recollection of Jodrell Bank was when I was at the University of Southampton and Doves played an acoustic set in front of the Lovell telescope.

As a kid growing up in East London, Jodrell Bank wasn’t something I was particularly aware of, or at least I don’t remember being particularly aware of it. But whilst in sixth form, a friend suggested I start listening to Elbow and Doves.