My brother, Phil Kitchen, who has died aged 74 after a stroke, was a community support worker and a singer-songwriter. Although born in Yorkshire, he spent most of his life in Newcastle and considered himself a naturalised Geordie.
Phil was born in Barnsley, the son of Kathleen (nee Wilkinson), a social worker, and Leslie Kitchen, a priest. He trained as a boy chorister at Wakefield Cathedral and attended Queen Elizabeth’s grammar school in Wakefield. Then he gained a sociology degree (1968) at the University of Kent, and a postgraduate diploma in town planning from the University of Glasgow.
In 1972 Phil moved to Newcastle, initially as a community worker with the Young Volunteer Force, supporting the communities of Stanhope Street and Elswick as they were being relocated from poor housing that was going to be demolished. He also set up a centre where residents could voice their concerns and receive support, and helped to organise community festivals to bring people together.
Later he was employed by Newcastle city council in Byker and Walker as the shipyards closed. With council cuts, he became an adult basic skills tutor with marginalised groups, encouraging people to write poetry and prose.
As a teenager, Phil had been greatly inspired by Bob Dylan. He started writing his own songs in the 1980s after taking part in a creative writing workshop. In the 90s he joined up with John Dowsett, his lodger, to form the band Doctor Socrates and together they made three albums, released in 1996, 1998 and 2009.
Retirement in 2007 gave Phil the time to develop his music, and he started working with Arthur Thompson (often called the “Flat Cap Cellist”). His first album under the name Citizen Marra, A Life, was released in 2020.
During lockdown, he released a second album, News from the Northern Lands, in September 2021, which he called a “manifesto for a northern utopia”. It documents the impact of the decline in major industries and of austerity on communities, where he believed that poor people had been left behind.
Phil loved Newcastle, its people, countryside and coast – and the River Tyne. At the time of his sudden death he was collating songs relating to the Old Northumbria.
Phil married and divorced twice. He is survived by Simon and Robert, sons from his marriage to Heather Holmes; by Bethan, his daughter with Jayne Mills; by seven grandchildren; and by his sisters, Mary, Liz and me.
