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Traditional Songs we sang at school

Mort,

No, John, no is a very old English folk song, also known in Sussex by the title Yonder stands a lovely creature. I know that we used to sing it school.

Maurice :cool:
 
paul stacey said:
Read through them again, great memories, of the 50's 60's, but really saddened too, as many would now be banned, due to Political Correctness, what can you say!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Paul
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I know they have reworded (understandably), Johnny come Down to Hylo. I think they still sing Sally Brown. I think the songs should be kept and not be lost. Like Irish rebel songs. Or any rebel song. Nan's Lullaby toe me, Go To Sleep My Baby, I don't think that would be allowed now but I know Paul Robeson sang it, beautifully.
 
Nico,

That is what the English Folk Dance & Song Society do - preserve traditional folk songs and folk dances from years gone by, teach them to the younger generation and give demonstration performances. It was founded around 1912 by Cecil Sharp and a group of interested parties, including composers Vaughan Williams, Grainger, & Butterworth. Elgar attended the first meeting and lost interest. Since the 1930s there is also a similar International Society mainly based in America, but started in England by Maud Karpeles, a founding member of the EFD&SS.

The problem now is getting younger people invoved now that the folk song revival has past its heyday, and funding will soon become a problem even though they get a bit of support from the Arts Council.

Maurice :cool:
 
sospiri said:
Nico,

That is what the English Folk Dance & Song Society do - preserve traditional folk songs and folk dances from years gone by, teach them to the younger generation and give demonstration performances. It was founded around 1912 by Cecil Sharp and a group of interested parties, including composers Vaughan Williams, Grainger, & Butterworth. Elgar attended the first meeting and lost interest. Since the 1930s there is also a similar International Society mainly based in America, but started in England by Maud Karpeles, a founding member of the EFD&SS.

The problem now is getting younger people invoved now that the folk song revival has past its heyday, and funding will soon become a problem even though they get a bit of support from the Arts Council.

Maurice :cool:
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bet you was a maurice dancer:grinning:
 
Fetch a bucket of water boys there`s fire down below.
My Sabots` go gaily ringing clattering along.
Put him in a long boat & keel haul him.
Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves.

All sung with great gusto !!
 
#216, very interesting Maurice, like I said earlier, the powers to be in education, seem to view, all tradition, and cultural history in the same WOKE, idiom, sad really, as the youth of today will not have the love of music, we did. I went to a fairly hard, working class school, but we loved singing lessons, and the singing teachers were well respected, we sung folk songs from all corners of the UK, even with the dialect differences, totally educational. Paul
 
Pete,

I don't even dance (or swim)! As for fancy braces & jingle bells round my legs, that's a big no no! :)

Paul,

I'm not actually a member, but I know some of the staff because my interest was in Cecil Sharp's music before he even got interested in folk music. Yes, he was a composer and some of his minor piano works still exist in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library hosted at Cecil Sharp House in London. But before his interest folk music, he spent some years in Australia and aside from his day job out there, he was also organist at one of the big Adelaide churches. Whilst there he composed several works including an operetta and a light opera. We've managed to trace a copy of the light opera, which hasn't been performed since its first premiere in 1890 followed immediately by a private performance for the Governor and his guests at Government House. About 30 years ago, an attempt was made to give it another performance at the Adelaide Festival, but the Committee in charge decided not to spend the considerable amount involved in favour of other events.

So the handwritten manuscripts still sit in a box at Cecil Sharp House, of which one bound photocopy exists for people to consult in the VWML. My idea was to use my notation software to produce a printable copy and an mp3 of the music (but not the vocals) using the samples of the BBC Symphony Orchestra which I also possess, so at least we would have permanent recording to which we only needed to add vocals.

As to the operatta, whilst the lyrics survive, all efforts to find a copy of the music in any form have failed despite scouring Adelaide Library & Archives and Cecil Sharp House. The lyrics to both works survive because they were written by an Australian author called Guy Boothby, and another interest for me was because he moved to the UK in 1903 and settled in Bournemouth, my adopted home town, and is buried in the old cemetery there.

It seems that the music to the operetta, Dimple's Lovers, will never be found, so that's a dead duck. The light opera, Sylvia, would be far too expensive to stage in the UK and finding sponsors for a very minor work such as this would be impossible. So my idea would at least enable an amateur light opera company to do a performance without the huge cost of employing a full orchestra. The sticking point is that VWML is staffed part-time by three volunteers who don't currently have the time or finances to make a second copy and they are not prepared to risk losing their only bound copy in the post. Currently the VWML has been closed for months due to covid and their main income from renting out their two halls for private functions has also ceased, so not a happy situation. Like many businesses they are struggling.

But, getting back on topic, many of the old folk songs have been published in a series of 6 volumes, and hundreds more songs are still in manuscript form, but have been digitised and any member of the puiblic can go onto the VWML website and download them. Sorry it's been a bit of a long story, but at least you now know that a lot of effort has been made to ensure these old songs & dances survive, and not just rural ones, but also the sword dances of the north east of England too.

Maurice :cool:
 
sospiri said:
Pete,

I don't even dance (or swim)! As for fancy braces & jingle bells round my legs, that's a big no no! :)

Paul,

I'm not actually a member, but I know some of the staff because my interest was in Cecil Sharp's music before he even got interested in folk music. Yes, he was a composer and some of his minor piano works still exist in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library hosted at Cecil Sharp House in London. But before his interest folk music, he spent some years in Australia and aside from his day job out there, he was also organist at one of the big Adelaide churches. Whilst there he composed several works including an operetta and a light opera. We've managed to trace a copy of the light opera, which hasn't been performed since its first premiere in 1890 followed immediately by a private performance for the Governor and his guests at Government House. About 30 years ago, an attempt was made to give it another performance at the Adelaide Festival, but the Committee in charge decided not to spend the considerable amount involved in favour of other events.

So the handwritten manuscripts still sit in a box at Cecil Sharp House, of which one bound photocopy exists for people to consult in the VWML. My idea was to use my notation software to produce a printable copy and an mp3 of the music (but not the vocals) using the samples of the BBC Symphony Orchestra which I also possess, so at least we would have permanent recording to which we only needed to add vocals.

As to the operatta, whilst the lyrics survive, all efforts to find a copy of the music in any form have failed despite scouring Adelaide Library & Archives and Cecil Sharp House. The lyrics to both works survive because they were written by an Australian author called Guy Boothby, and another interest for me was because he moved to the UK in 1903 and settled in Bournemouth, my adopted home town, and is buried in the old cemetery there.

It seems that the music to the operetta, Dimple's Lovers, will never be found, so that's a dead duck. The light opera, Sylvia, would be far too expensive to stage in the UK and finding sponsors for a very minor work such as this would be impossible. So my idea would at least enable an amateur light opera company to do a performance without the huge cost of employing a full orchestra. The sticking point is that VWML is staffed part-time by three volunteers who don't currently have the time or finances to make a second copy and they are not prepared to risk losing their only bound copy in the post. Currently the VWML has been closed for months due to covid and their main income from renting out their two halls for private functions has also ceased, so not a happy situation. Like many businesses they are struggling.

But, getting back on topic, many of the old folk songs have been published in a series of 6 volumes, and hundreds more songs are still in manuscript form, but have been digitised and any member of the puiblic can go onto the VWML website and download them. Sorry it's been a bit of a long story, but at least you now know that a lot of effort has been made to ensure these old songs & dances survive, and not just rural ones, but also the sword dances of the north east of England too.

Maurice :cool:
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I have some music arranged by Cecil Sharp. We did country dancing at school. And sang to four of them. In and Out the Bonny Bluebells,ee eye Oh. Nan's version was in and out the darkened windows.We sang stand and face your parter, Nan sang as a girl, at school stand and face your lover.
Brighton Camp (Parting with My Sally) and a scottish reel, Now the fiddlers ready let us all begin so step it out and step it in etc. And Black Nab to the Jolly Miller.There was a jolly miller once lived on the river Dee.
We danced to Gathering Peasecods? Caludon I forget the other names. I was team captain with Elaine Hancock. A strapping wench. We were the worst team but we had the best laugh. Niel Coupland had to dance as girl. My Dublin mate danced with Susan Smith another strapping wench He jiggled her up and down to Caludon so she flashed her suspenders.
We loved singing, Turn The Glasses Over, Over In The Meadow, Poor Old Horse, Brennan On The Moor, Kitty Of Coleraine, The Lark InThe Clear Air, Annie Laurie, .
I went to a garden party at Cape House in Erdington I got dragged up to dance they had the local Country Dance Team.
 
Fascinating stuff, Nico, and there are so many regional variations too. Sharp started collecting in 1893. It makes you wonder how many had come. gone and been lost before then. One of my books has a picture of the Bucknell (near Bicester, Oxfordshire) Morris Men that is dated as 1875 and by then it had started to die down. It was purely a men's preserve and Sharp reckoned that the only way to prevent it's extinction was to involve the ladies as well. So he set up a mixed dance troup of men and lady dancers, six of each, and gave demonstrations and lessons all over England, though I think that the closest he came to Brum was regular stints in Stratford-on-Avon and Banbury. But it wasn't just Morris, it was jigs as well.

I was in the UK about 10 years ago and happened to drive through the middle of Bolton one day and there was a large group of Morris men dancing in the centre of the town. It was good to see that it was still going.

Maurice :cool:
 
Nico said:
Have you seen th muffin man
The Cuckoo
Blow The Wind Southerly.
When Daisies pied (can't tell you what we sang here) and voilets blue.
Brennan on The Moor
The Lincolnshire Poacher
The Derby Ram
Westering Home
Maire's Wedding
Bill Palmer the Farmer
The Street of Laredo
Old Stewball was a race horse etc

The last 3 songs were curtosy of Mr Gill an assisant teacher who sang to a guitar and got us in to drama and he had long (ish) hair!
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I have very few memories of Burlington Street School but I do remember Mairi's Wedding and the teacher trying to teach us to dance 'heel to toe'. A couple of months ago it was buzzing around in my head and I didn't know what the song was called but found it eventually. Never did learn how to do it and I have never been any good at dancing.

 
sospiri said:
Fascinating stuff, Nico, and there are so many regional variations too. Sharp started collecting in 1893. It makes you wonder how many had come. gone and been lost before then. One of my books has a picture of the Bucknell (near Bicester, Oxfordshire) Morris Men that is dated as 1875 and by then it had started to die down. It was purely a men's preserve and Sharp reckoned that the only way to prevent it's extinction was to involve the ladies as well. So he set up a mixed dance troup of men and lady dancers, six of each, and gave demonstrations and lessons all over England, though I think that the closest he came to Brum was regular stints in Stratford-on-Avon and Banbury. But it wasn't just Morris, it was jigs as well.

I was in the UK about 10 years ago and happened to drive through the middle of Bolton one day and there was a large group of Morris men dancing in the centre of the town. It was good to see that it was still going.

Maurice :cool:
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We had the French cousins over some years back and we took them to Berkswell and the Morris Men danced on the village green. They loved it, the men stopped for a photo call, where do you come from etc. There used to be a week or a day where they danced all around Coventry from pub to pub to club it was a free for all at the end. In one pub they had the Mummers, all blacked up. We took some more French friends to Long Itchington, a pub on the river and a boat with a piper went past, he heard their accents and played Plaisir d'Amour. I knew a girl once danced they weren't Morris or Mummers. They wore cord trousers with string round their knees and clogs. I like Northern clog dancing too.
 
brummy-lad said:
I have very few memories of Burlington Street School but I do remember Mairi's Wedding and the teacher trying to teach us to dance 'heel to toe'. A couple of months ago it was buzzing around in my head and I didn't know what the song was called but found it eventually. Never did learn how to do it and I have never been any good at dancing.

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I changed the words to this for one of my collegue's weddings, a Brummy wench from Aston. Lisa's Wedding. I also took my harmonica to my partner's mum's funeral in France. It was a rush job. They had no organist but the lay preacher's wife sang the missals. I played Danny Boy at the graveside. And Mairi's Wedding at the cousins' house and a few jigs. I love Mairi's Wedding and Westering Home, it features on a bottle of whisky I think. The Lewis Tramping Song. Over the Sea To Sky. Ye Banks and Braes o Bonny Doon.....but my sweet lover stole my rose but ah she left the thorn wi' me.
 
My recollection of singing in primary school was
D'ye ken John Peel (probably not politically correct today)
The British Grenadiers
The Bonnets of Bonny Dundee
The Men of Harlech (we had a Welsh teacher)
Nymphs and Shepherds (I hated that one, it seemed so stupid to me as I just did not understand the words)

When I went on to grammar school our music lessons were a travesty of the subject. I think we had one lesson on music theory every year and the rest of the time was just hymn practice for the following weeks school assemblies. However it got our music master recruits for the choir at his church where he was organist and choir master.
 
David,

Well at least most of our music lessons, for those that didn't have violin or cello lessons, was largely music appreciation. Our music master, Stanley Adams, was a fine pianist who frequently gave recitals on the Third Programme, as it was called in those days, so apart from singing the odd silly song like Nymphs & Shepherds, we had a few elementary tonic solfa lessons, and the rest was listening to records of things like Vaughan William's Wasps, Mendelsohn's Hebrides, and Dvorak's New World. Unless you planned to do O Level Music - and I had timetable clashes so I dropped music after the third year - then nothing was studied in any great depth. I would have willingly have dropped French and gone on to do Music, but it just didn't resolve the issue.

If you got involved in any of the musical activities of the school, you were invariably dragged into Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, which I still don't like and never have.

Maurice :cool:
 
DavidGrain said:
My recollection of singing in primary school was
D'ye ken John Peel (probably not politically correct today)
The British Grenadiers
The Bonnets of Bonny Dundee
The Men of Harlech (we had a Welsh teacher)
Nymphs and Shepherds (I hated that one, it seemed so stupid to me as I just did not understand the words)

When I went on to grammar school our music lessons were a travesty of the subject. I think we had one lesson on music theory every year and the rest of the time was just hymn practice for the following weeks school assemblies. However it got our music master recruits for the choir at his church where he was organist and choir master.
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Aaa - and Peel's view halloooooooooo! Would awaken the dead.....we hung on to the loooooooo as long as possible till Mr Hurst got up from the piano and hit someone with a ruler, and with a tow row row row row row row row ...thwack!
 
And to The Mermaid....and the rolling seas did roar, grrrh! grrrh! and the stormy winds did blow, whooof! whoof! and we jolly sailor boys were up and up aloft and the land lubbers (except we sang buggars) lying down below thwack! I never sat near the piano for that reason, or I sat right under it and you wouldn't get hit as it protected you.
 
And The Lincolnshire Poacher (we were sometimes all boys for music as we got older,) the girls had their lesson separate, Oh its my delight on a shining night but we sang in a comfy bed, in the season of the year.
And Greensleeves we sang green snot. Thwacketty thwack!
And Lillibulero bullen ala. What?
 
I liked the songs you sang a few bars after each other like London's Burning, Frere Jacques = Frairuh Jacker, and Three Blind Mice. When Daisies Pied, and Violets Blue, Lavendar's blue Dilly Dilly, The Ash Grove, Early One Morning, all a bit sad. I preferred Old Woman Old Woman will you darn my stockings, And the girls sang back, Speak a little louder sir I'm rather hard of hearing, The Old Women Tossed Up In a Basket, Dashing Away With The Smoothing Iron. Soldier Soldier Wont You Marry Me, Suzanna's A Beautiful Sow, and The Drummer and The Cook,....Fa La the dowadiddy boow bow wow???I loved all the Sea Shanties.
 
My classmate Graham got in deep trouble when we were about seven. Mrs Jenkins got us singing a cheery ditty with actions and invited us to name different occupations, like
Tommy was a painter (x3) I know I know I know,
All do as I do (x3) I know I know I know and we would 'paint'
Tommy was a gardener, and we would rake,
All do as I do and Graham put his two fingers up .....and got sent to Miss Jones the harridan headmistress.
 
We sang Clemantine, and I sang Nan's version and got a funny look off the teacher......
Drove she ducklings, to the water and her shoe was number nine,
Caught her foot against a splinter fell into the salty brine.
And Nan's version of John Brown's body,
Glory glory warra hell uvva way ta go,
``and mum's version
They scraped him off the tarmac like a pound a strawberry jam!.....more looks.
Aged 10 we had one year of conversational French because our teacher could speak it, and we used to sing, badly
Un éléphant qui se balancer, sur une toile d'arraignée, .......we sang sur un twalla darra raynyay
And more looks when as I sang dad's soo lee pong, davving yong,
 
brummy-lad said:
I have very few memories of Burlington Street School but I do remember Mairi's Wedding and the teacher trying to teach us to dance 'heel to toe'. A couple of months ago it was buzzing around in my head and I didn't know what the song was called but found it eventually. Never did learn how to do it and I have never been any good at dancing.

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I remember at our secondary modern school a scot female who taught us the Gay Gordon and several other dances from north of the border she loved to see the boys with a good lift in their steps . I can still hear her today " Lift laddie lift , how do you expect to be any good at football" ? Never did me any good , I was no good at football , as for dance two left feet. So much for education .
 
Williamstreeter said:
I remember at our secondary modern school a scot female who taught us the Gay Gordon and several other dances from north of the border she loved to see the boys with a good lift in their steps . I can still hear her today " Lift laddie lift , how do you expect to be any good at football" ? Never did me any good , I was no good at football , as for dance two left feet. So much for education .
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our Miss Scothern had a victory roll, quite old fashioned, she used to shout out, one two three hop! For us to try and polka, to a scottish reel. In two three out two three over two three over two three, a sort of highland square dance, I don;t know the tune but I can hum it! You guided your partner and she twirled under your arm to the other side. Then you waltzed the last bit.
 
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