Nan used to sing that, My Fairther wuz a Spanish Onion went to seed a week a go,Can I ave yer ond in marriage will you answer yes or knowAt my junior schools we sang a song called No John.
Nan used to sing that, My Fairther wuz a Spanish Onion went to seed a week a go, Can I ave yer ond in marriage will yow answer yes or noAt my junior schools we sang a song called No John.
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.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
bet you was a maurice dancerNico,
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
I have an old game I posted before Nine Men's Maurice.bet you was a maurice dancer
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.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
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.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!
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.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
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.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.
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!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.
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 .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.
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 .