One of my favourite songs, and another from the wonderful May Bradley (see last week’s post). I learned this from the book Garners Gay, prompted by having heard the song on the LP Rose of Britain’s Isle by John Kirkpatrick and Sue Harris. I adjusted the way I sing ‘Sweet Swansea’ a little bit after hearing May Bradley herself sing it on the Garners Gay LP. In particular I really liked the way she repeated the last verse, but changing the words ever so slightly. It was the lack of this feature on either of the versions included on the Musical Traditions CD Sweet Swansea which made me realise that some of the recordings from the 1971 EFDSS LP had not (initially) been included on this CD. It turned out that the National Sound Archive had provided Rod with all of the recordings they had of Mrs Bradley – which, sadly, suggests that one reel of tape must have gone missing at some point between 1971 and 2010; hopefully this will reappear at some point.
According to May Bradley the song was based on an actual incident, and had been written by her “double great grandfather”; and it’s certainly the case that only one other version is known to have been collected, by Cecil Sharp in 1907, from Caroline Passmore, Pitminster, Somerset.
The Rake's complaint in Limbo - ballad sheet from the Bodleian collection
I first heard this song performed by the Oyster Ceilidh Band in the late seventies. They subsequently recorded it on the LP Jack’s Alive. I learned the words from Frank Purslow’s book Marrowbones; where I also found that, although the Oysters played it in 6/8, it had originally been notated in 3/4.
The song has been found only rarely in oral tradition. The version in Marrowbones was collected in 1908 by George Gardiner, from James Brooman, of Upper Faringdon in Hampshire, and can now be seen via the EFDSS Take Six archive.
It is always stated that the title of the song comes from the nickname for a debtor’s prison, such as the Marshalsea Prison where Charles Dickens’ father was imprisoned. I thought I’d try to find some evidence for this usage, so I looked at the Online Slang Dictionary - which tells us only that “limbo” has been used to refer to marijuana. The OED, meanwhile, has various definitions for “limbo”:
A region supposed to exist on the border of Hell as the abode of the just who died before Christ’s coming, and of unbaptized infants
A South African name for a kind of coarse calico
A dance in which the dancer bends backwards and passes under a horizontal bar raised only a few inches off the ground.
Initially I thought all of these seemed irrelevant to the song; but actually, thinking about Dickens’ descriptions of debtors’ prison, it occurred to me that the first definition was probably the origin of our modern expression “in limbo”, and could easily have been used to refer to the interminable wait [for something to turn up] of those imprisoned for debt.
And then I came across this passage from Biblical references in Shakespeare’s plays by Naseeb Shaheen, via Google Books
“Limbo” is the religious term used to denote the underworld abode of just souls not entitled to go to heaven because of having died before Christ (limbus oatrum), or because they lacked baptism (limbus infantum). The teaching is based on Church tradition rather than on Scripture. The word is used in that sense in Titus Andronicus 3.1.149, and All’s Well That Ends Well 5.3.261. But in Shakespeare’s day, “limbo” was also the cant term for London’s debtors’ prisons. Used in the latter sense, to be in limbo would mean to be in prison. Limbo Patrum is used in that sense in Henry VIII 5.3.64.
Clearly this usage of the word continued for at least another two centuries after Shakespeare’s time – the ballad sheet shown here dates from the early nineteenth century, while our song was noted down in the early twentieth century. From Wikipedia I learn that “The Debtors’ Act of 1869 abolished imprisonment for debt, although debtors who had the means to pay their debt, but did not do so, could still be incarcerated for up to six weeks.”
Now if you’ll listen for a while, a story I will tell you,
And if you don’t attention pay, I’m sure I can’t compel you
Another poaching song from the great George ‘Pop’ Maynard of Copthorne in Sussex. The song was apparently written by his friend Fred Holman, of Tatsfield in Surrey, who would write out the words for the price of a pint. It tells of a true incident which occurred on estates owned by the Goschen family near New Addington in Surrey. In time-honoured fashion, Fred used an older tune for his composition: ”The Barking Barber” or “Bow Wow Wow” was popular in the 1780s, published by Chappell in 1858, and sufficiently well-known to be parodied in Alice in Wonderland (thanks to Musical Traditions and www.folklorist.org/ for this information).
Pop Maynard was no stranger to poaching. As an old man he told Ken Stubbs
I should go out again if I had my time over again, before I should let my family go short of anything… I came home and I had my tea… and there was Arthur and Nellie wanted a pair of shoes bad, so I said to my wife, I said, “After I’ve had my tea, Polly, I’ll go out and see if I can catch a few rabbits, to see if I can earn they youngsters a pair of shoes”… So I went across the common into the field aside of the woods, and I pitched up my net twice and I catched six rabbits each time: that makes a dozen; and I took them home and I said, “There you are, Polly, now you can take they rabbits to old (the butcher) in the morning and you can get ten bob for them.” Tenpence each, then, good rabbits. And I said, “With ten shillings you can buy them both a pair of shoes” – so you could at that time.
(Journal of the English Folk Dance & Song Society, December 1963)
I dedicate this one to my great friend Adrian, an incorrigible smoker, who always refers to the song as “Baccy all the while”.
This is a song from the Suffolk singer, Bob Hart. I learned it from Roy Palmer’s book, The Everyman’s Book of English Country Songs, although I subsequently heard it on the Topic LP Songs from Suffolk.
A different recording can be heard on Musical Traditions MTCD301 Bob Hart: A Broadside.
It is clearly a later rewrite of the song ‘Virginny’ which Martin Carthy recorded on his album Crown of Horn, but the change of destination lacks some historical accuracy. As Rod Stradling explains in his notes to the Musical Traditions CD, most transportation songs concern poaching rather than highway robbery; for the simple reason that in the eighteenth century highwaymen were transported to Virginia, while in the nineteenth century the punishment was hanging.
A poaching song from George ‘Pop’ Maynard of Copthorne in Sussex.
The song was recorded for the BBC by Peter Kennedy in 1956, and made available on the 1976 Topic LP Ye Subjects of England; it’s also on To Catch a Fine Buck Was My Delight (The Voice of the People volume 18).
I first heard it – I think – on Martin Carthy’s LP Crown of Horn; but would have heard Pop himself singing it on Ye Subjects of England not long after. And then I found the words and notation in a slim EFDSS pamplet, The life and songs of George Maynard (actually a reprint of Ken Stubbs’ article from the Journal of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, 1963) which I picked up at my first Sidmouth Festival in 1978.
Pop Maynard - from the Musical Traditions website
Pop Maynard was, as well as being a fine singer with some excellent songs, quite a character. Amongst other occupations, he had been a woodcutter and hop-pole puller – and poacher. He was also a marbles champion, taking part in the annual Good Friday championships at the Greyhound pub at nearby Tinsley Green (now rather uncomfortably close to both Gatwick Airport and the M25). You can read more about the Marbles Championship at Tinsley Green – and see photos of Pop Maynard playing marbles in the 1950s – at www.greyhoundmarbles.com
Traditional singers often conclude a song by saying “and that’s a true story”. Well this one really is. The song tells of the murder in August 1856 of sisters Caroline and Maria Back (19 and 17 respectively), by Dedia Bedanies, a private in the British Swiss Legion based at Shorncliffe Barracks near Folkestone in Kent. Bedanies was tried for murder and hanged at Maidstone gaol, January 1857.
George Spicer - from the Musical Traditions website
I learned this from George Spicer who, although he spent most of his life in Sussex, was actually born at Little Chart in Kent – just a few miles from my home town. He learned this song from his father-in-law, Sydney Appleton, of Lydden, Kent. George’s son Ron – another fine singer and an absolutely lovely man – also sang this song, and recorded it on The Keys of Canterbury, an album of Kentish material with which I was also involved – see Pete Castle’s website for details.
In fact the song seems to have been well-known in Kent – perhaps as a warning to young girls. Charlie Bridger from Stone-in-Oxney had a full version, with very similar tune and words to George Spicer’s; Francis Collinson collected a couple of versions in Kent in the 1940s, but also found the song in Buckinghamshire and Dorset. Truncated versions have been recorded from a number of Southern English Traveller singers, for example Charlie Scamp.
I learned the song from George Spicer’s Topic LP Blackberry Fold which has not to date been released on CD or MP3. But you can hear George singing the song on the Musical Traditions CD Just Another Saturday Night: Sussex 1960.
Rod Stradling has described this song as “A horrible song, it seems to me, with few redeeming graces” but I’ve always had a soft spot for it. Not least because this was the song I sang when I won the first Sidmouth Singer competition, at the Sidmouth Festival back in 1984. This was a very proud moment for me – the competition was judged by Shirley and Dolly Collins, and the runners up Bill Prince and Barbara Berry were certainly no slouches as singers. Since Vic Smith has a history of re-posting this lovely picture of my knees, I’ll get in first: here’s me with Shirley, and the enormous slipware plate which was my prize.
&id=04123.gif&seq=1&size=1 "The Rake's complaint in Limbo - ballad sheet from the Bodleian collection")
Rod Stradling has described this song
