Week 242 – Long Looked For Come At Last

I learned this from Caroline Jackson-Houlston. She and I used to sing it together – performing as Flash Company – in the early 1980s, and it’s one of several songs from that period which she and I both retain in our individual repertoires. Mind you, Caroline has always made quite clear what her reaction would be, if a suitor buggered off for a year then came back claiming “you’re the one I really want” – and it wouldn’t be to drag him off to church.

I still have Caroline’s typed copy of the words. Unusually, they don’t give her source, but looking at the Full English it must be this version from the 85 year old William Winter, collected at Andover by H. Balfour Gardiner, and which forms the basis of the version printed in Frank Purslow’s The Wanton Seed.

‘Abroad as I was a-walking’ from the Gardiner MSS, via the Full English

Long Looked For Come At Last

Andy Turner – vocal, C/G anglo-concertina

Tags: anglo-concertina, George Gardiner, Hampshire, Henry Balfour Gardiner, Love Sex & Courtship, Roud 1643, William Winter