British Library reveals Dorset songs and stories
A NEW service from the British Library allows users to search through an online map of Dorset for old recordings of songs and stories.
It’s a way of exploring the county which can leave you feeling like the cider drinkers described by John Symonds (born 1871) of Whitchurch Canonicorum: “They did soon get off on their head.”
Some parts of the county are noticeably ruddier and more intoxicating than others.
Broadwindsor boasts more than 50 pieces recorded by the Lancashire-based folk song collectors Nick and Mally Dow. Performers include ‘Flash’ Phelps, Doug Phillips, Norman House and Dick Corbett.
The late Mr Corbett used to be landlord of The White Lion in Broadwindsor. His ashes (I’m told by Maddie Grigg) are scattered on Lewesdon Hill.
Lewesdon Hill. Photograph copyright Ray Beer, reused under Creative Commons Licence.
On the British Library’s map for Traditional Music, you can hear him sing round about 30 songs in what the notes correctly identify as a “Lively pub atmosphere.”
This means you hear comments such as “Now sing Thrashing Machine… I don’t know the bloody words” – but then off it goes –
“I ad er by night and I ad er by day / I ups and I shows her the West Dorset way”
Beaminster boasts even more recordings, from Fred Chubb, Mrs Fowler, Beaminster Band member Bill House and his son Norman, a retired forestry worker and resident of Newtown. Among the rarer songs performed by Norman House is the true and scary Murder at North Perrott.
Other places and people featured include Weymouth (Ivy Sims), Dorchester (Henry Barter and George Hirst), Charminster (Norman Grey – singing Cock-a-doodle-doo in the front of his Ford Anglia in a pub car park), Stratton (Lewis Downton) and Piddletrenthide (Bill Hunt).
I don’t trouble what nobody say
Portesham crops up under Accents and Dialects. Sid Hodder (born 1878) talks about traditional stacking and threshing techniques and he also gives his views on other aspects of farming to his interviewer back in 1956, a man called Stanley Ellis.
Stanley: And what about root crops? Did you grow root crops?
Sid: You always, yes, you always growed root crops. If you don’t grow root cops, crops, you can’t get, you can’t get no food for sheep, you see. Yeah, and if you, if you don’t, if you don’t have sheep on the land, you can’t grow good corn.
Stanley: Mmm.
Sid: I don’t trouble what nobody say. Sheep is the place for the farm and that’s what the farms, that’s what the land is missing now, is sheep.
Stanley: Mmm.
Time is like a mighty river
Mmm, indeed.
I found myself wondering about other people whose voices we can now only imagine, and one example in particular, which shows how dependent upon chance and time is the survival of what comes down to us.
There was once a man called Jimmy Staple, who lived in Stoke Abbott and liked ferreting and cider.
He’s featured in Frederick Swaffield’s Narrative of Life in Stoke Abbott between 1895 and 1924. Fred was the second oldest of 12 children, born in Bridport in 1888, where his father worked at Palmers Brewery. Near the turn of the century the Swaffields moved to Stoke Abbott to take over the New Inn. Fred left school at 12 and worked in farming but then, because of the decline in agriculture, he went to work in the quarries on Portland. He returned to Stoke Abbott before he died in 1963 and he wrote down his memories in pencil in a school exercise book. That’s how we know about Jimmy Staple.
“When Jim was asked to sing in the pubs, he always sang an old song I have only heard him sing.
In this world I gained my knowledge
And for what I had to pay
Although I never went to colledge
Yet I heard the poet say
Time is like a mighty river
Rolling on from day to day
Men are vessels launched upon it
Sometimes wrecked on east away
So do your best for one another
Making life a pleasant dream
Help a worn and weary brother
Pulling hard against the stream.
“Poor Jimmy had a cancer on his lip, which caused his death.”
[Editor's Note: I haven't listened to all of the British Library's archival sound recordings. There's a lot!
If you find anything you think that is particularly enjoyable or interesting, please get in touch and share your discoveries.]
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