He was born Steven William Bragg in Essex around the time Tommy Steele was climbing the singles charts with Happy Guitar and the Soviet Union was launching Sputnik 2 into space. Today, he is known as Billy Bragg by his loyalists worldwide yet he is still called Steven by his Mother and still referred to as the Bard of Barking by the press. He has worked, and worked is the operative verb here, alongside British parliamentarians, unskilled unemployed workers, members of the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, young music hopefuls, unsung buskers in the street, incarcerated convicts, newly liberated refugees, punk rockers and striking dockers.