All written by Cyril Tawney
5. ON A MONDAY MORNING (1961).
6. THERE ARE NO LIGHTS ON OUR CHRISTMAS TREE (1962).
2. TAMAR VALLEY REQUIEM (1971).
3. WEST YORKSHIRE LULLABY (1995).
5. MY MOTHER CAME FROM NORWAY (1958).
7. IF WE DID TO THEIR DAUGHTERS (1970),
This song is often misunderstood. It’s not so much about what has happened, which is very little, as what is threatening to happen. Who is the lonelier, the travelling solo folk singer, or his overnight hostess with a husband not at work and four walls to stare at? Over the years these two have grown closer with each visit, and their mutual sense of propriety has weakened with each breakfast they’ve shared.
I allowed my obsession with alliteration full play in these lyrics, hut the melody seemed too sophisticated for Folk, so the song lay unused in a drawer for nine years before (first performed it at Southport in 1993. However, in the meantime I entered it for the 1987 Kendal “SONGSEARCH” Competition (not restricted to folk-style songs). It wasn’t even short-listed, but subsequent audiences seem to have had a different opinion.
A mock-rustic ditty from the closing months of my Navy technical apprenticeship, very influenced by the contemporary American hit “Cigarettes and Whiskey”. It was going to be sung in an HMS “Collingwood” revue by a scratch group, Sheepdip Tawney and the Cowshed Cleaners, but the show itself was never staged and then we all passed out into the Fleet. The song finally came into its own with the Folk Revival My mom always called it “Joviality”.
It wasn’t just the travelling public who were affected by the Beeching cuts. I knew a veteran railway worker who was running a Devon halt single-handed. He found himself facing the axe, so this song was based loosely on him.
Beacon Park was the quiet area of Plymouth where I first lodged in 1959, after completing 12 years in the Royal Navy. At first the contrast was welcome, but by 1961 I'd had enough of enforced tranquillity and moved to the centre of town. The song came quite a while later. You need to know that Plymouth Albion Rugby Club has its ground at Beacon Park and that Geraldine Lamb ran a Plymouth ballet school (among whose pupils were Angela Rippon and my wife Rosemary).
The kind of song that can he heard with detached amusement only if you yourself aren’t among the sufferers. Back in 1949 a naval apprentices’ vocal quartet known as The Four Aways (‘lofty’ Edwards, ‘Dumbo’ Elford, ‘Windy’ Waterhouse and Yours Truly) made a private recording of the current hit “Lucky Old Sun”, and the idea recurs here in verse 4.
Too soon to be out of me bed
Too soon to back at this bus queue caper
Or fumbling for change for me picture paper
On a Monday morning
Wrong end of the week for a smile
Wrong end of the day for being civil
There’s many a saint would be a devil
On a Monday morning
Where is the weekend now?
Where is the whiskey and beer I tasted?
Gone as the same way as the pay I’ve wasted
On a Monday morning.
If only the birds would booze
If only the sun was a party giver
If I could just lend someone else this liver
On a Monday morning
My lover she lies asleep
My lover is warm and her heart is mellow
I’d trade you the world just to share her pillow
On a Monday morning
Too soon to be out of me bed
Too soon to be back at this bus queue caper
Or fumbling for change for me picture paper
On a Monday morning.
A lament from a child who is clearly more of a traditionalist than his father. When Dad is watching TV he wants complete silence and no superfluous illumination, and that goes for Christmas too. Reference to the series “Laramie” dates the song, but I've never been able to modernise it satisfactorily. The very rudimentary guitar work is intended for anybody who has been given one for Christmas and hasn’t learned to play it yet.
The time has come for festivity
For Christmas pudding and revelry
But as I passed our house the other night
I heard this little voice so clear and bright.
Chorus: (after each verse)
There are no lights on our Christmas tree
We must not spoil the telly vee
No party games nor mistletoe
Just whistle Wensleslas and out you go
Just once a year I become a square
I like to feel the tinsel in my hair
I like to hear the songs of days gone by
But dad and I we don’t see eye to eye
The box of crackers from uncle Alf
It lies unopened upon the shelf
Dad has forbid them but we’re hoping he
Wont notice one more bang in Laramie
Some carol singers came to the door
I’d never seen dad so mad before
He grabbed the leader by the coat
And tried to ram his lantern down his throat
The latest boyfriend of sister Bett
Was simply gasping for a cigarette
He looked a proper case I do declare
A striking matches down behind a chair
When I grow up to be a man
There’ll be no telly vision in my plan
With laughter gay my house will ring
I never want to hear my family sing
There are no lights on our Christmas tree
We must not spoil the telly vee
No party games nor mistletoe
Just whistle Wensleslas and out you go
I chipped away at this one, on and off, for three-and-a half years before I felt it was right. A seduced woman lies in labour, faced with the prospect of becoming a deserted single parent. No song for a male to sing, so (not for the first time) Chris While, with Joe on the keyboards, did me the great honour of breathing life into it. Special thanks, though, are also due to Plymouth’s Meg Henderson, who took the song up soon after it was completed back in 1966. These two apart, female singers have tended to back off from the song for some reason.
Begun in 1962 but added to in 1965 and 1966, this was a deliberate attempt to manufacture homespun philosophy. A ponder-ball is the weight just above the hook of a crane, keeping the cable taut.
In 1971 John Pett and Angela Rippon produced a Westward TV documentary called “THE SILENT VALLEY” about the derelict tin mines along the valley of the River Tamar between Devon and Cornwall They asked me for a song, and this was the result. I imagined the area as a theatre stage where the play had once been about prosperity for all (“the anthems of Midas could he heard every day”) but was now concerned only with neglect and decay. Stylistically the song is a deliberate cross-pollination between ‘SALLY FREE AND EASY and ‘THE OGGIE MAN’ (see NEP 002 “SALLY FREE AND EASY”).
There aren’t many Beacon Parks in West Yorkshire, folks! A ‘lullaby’ for the most part, but it ends up more of a dandling song. It would probably sound at its best sung by Eartha Kitt. Captain Oates, by the way, had his family home at Meanwood in Leeds.
“Let me be your sidetrack till your main line comes along” says a negro blues, and the fellow in this song has the same problem. In my early civilian days I did a fair amount of singing on Saturday nights in the Royal Oak at Meavy, just north of Plymouth. Outside the pub stands a 1,000-year-old oak. Although completely hollow it still produces full foliage every year. Now you know what verse 4 is about.
I was back at the Navy’s electrical school, HMS “Collingwood”, when I threw this little squib together during one dinner-hour.
If a career-conscious American lady offers a fellow money to give her his name and British nationality in a marriage of convenience, with no strings attached, he might well turn her down, as a friend of mine did. But what if she’s the girl of his dreams? Might he not take a chance on something more permanent?
The late Fred Woods asked a few of us if we would produce songs for an album and songbook in aid of the World Wildlife Fund. As l hadn’t worked with David Attenborough since be was a Naval lieutenant at Rosyth is 1949 I promptly agreed to have ago. A protest song from my pen is something rare, so there was a tendency to cram every aspect of Conservation into the one outburst. Like most others of its type the song is strong on overstatement. The mild expletive ‘blooming’ invites something more potent if you feel like it, and verse two contains a nod in the direction of Woody Guthrie’s “some will rob you with a six-gun and some with a fountain pen”. Lastly, I have felt obliged to update the final line, which originally referred to the old TV programme “All Our Yesterdays”.
CYRIL TAWNEY.
Songs of Seafarers and the Fairer Sex (All songs traditional, arranged Cyril Tawney.)
Sung by CYRIL TAWNEY (vocals & nylon-strung accoustic guitar)
Recorded at Lion Studios, Leeds, England. Oct-Nov 1990.
7. SHORT JACKET AND WHITE TROUSERS.
6. THE SAILOR CUT DOWN IN HIS PRIME.
Photo: HMS “Drake” Photographic Section.
It wasn’t just the nice girls who loved a sailor. When Jack came ashore quite a few nasty ones lay in wait for him as well. There were malevolent Maggie Mays on the dockside as well as steadfast Susans. Given reasonable luck, of course, he was just as likely to end up with the girl of his dreams as any landsman was, but in the meantime he could often find himself outflanked by an unscrupulous siren or two (not to mention unprincipled pub landladies). Yet good or bad, young or old, loyal or treacherous, Jack sang about them all. So sit back and enjoy a feast of songs celebrating the mixed relationships between mariners, maids and matrons down through the years.
There’s a whole group of songs dealing with Sailor Jack being robbed of both money and clothes by ‘professional’ women (see MAGGIE MAY on Side Two). This one grew up after the 1830’s when the polka first became popular. A natural part of the shoreside singalong repertoire, it also proved useful as a capstan and windlass shanty. This particular version, however, seems to owe a little to modern American college scribes as well.
I was pushing three years old before I was introduced to my father. He’d just spent two and a half years cruising in South American waters on HMS Durban. Years later, whenever I sang this around the house, a faraway look would come into Dad’s eyes. I‘ve often wondered why.
An old song-yarn with an East Anglian twist. Popularised by the in imitable Pete Bellamy, who obtained it from Peter Bullen of Norfolk.
Here we have a distant, North American relation of the British TURTLE DOVE or MY LOVE IS LIKE A RED, RED ROSE.
Only a one-verse complaint, but it’s bulging with truth, folks!
In a quite literal sense this shanty is hauntingly beautiful, with a super natural theme that couldn’t fail to appeal to superstitious sailing men of the mid-l9th century.
Not all transvestite “sailors” got found out, if this little piece is anything to go by. It actually started as an episode in a longer narrative, but its wry conclusion eventually gave it a life of its own.
Yarmouth again! This is Harry Cox’s Norfolk version of the ‘Fireship’ theme. Because of its gunnery motif it was a favourite among old-timers at Whale Island, the Portsmouth Gunnery School.
In bygone days the sailor was only popular while his money lasted, and was always being ripped off. But sometimes the worm turned.
Sir John Franklin’s 1845 attempt to find the North-West passage in the ships ‘Erebus’ and ‘Terror’ ended in tragedy. The Entire party perished, and despite a succession of relief expeditions, many financed personally by the redoubtable Lady Franklin herself, their fate remained uncertain until 1859, when Captain McClintock discovered the sad truth. Joanna Colcord observed that this version of the song must date from before his successful expedition, but after Captain Osborne’s voyage in 1852. There ought to be memorial to Lady Franklin, a wife whose loyalty, faith and fortitude deserved a happier reward. McClintock, incidentally, was later Admiral-Superintendant of Portsmouth Dockyard, where he became a great friend of Dame Agnes (Aggie) Weston.
We have here the full, original form of ‘The Eddystone Light’, made famous by Burl Ives. If you’re familiar with that version you may be puzzled as to where you’d find the starboard side of a lighthouse! Relax, the mystery is solved. The action takes place, not at the Eddystone Lighthouse at all, but on board the Nore Lightship, off the Thames Estuary A certain degree of cheating has been involved, inasmuch as the story features a ‘semi-woman’ rather than the real thing.
If any Royal Navy person slips into a time-warp on their next visit to the Union Jack Club in London they could easily find themselves standing in the heart of Cuper’s Garden, the pleasure resort opened by Boydell Cuper in 1678. So much flirting and courting went on there that it was more often referred to as ‘Cupid’s Garden’. Things worsened over the years, till eventually the place became so notorious for its loose society that it was closed down in 1753. Our couple seem respectable enough, though.
The exquisite variant of the tune was given to Joy Hyman by Thaxted Morrisman Clifford Yeldham.
She seems to have been so popular I couldn’t leave her out!
In former days the clinical consequences of sexual promiscuity were far from funny, and all too often fatal. Seamen and other itinerants far from home were particularly prone to encounter ‘Fireships’. Old Devonport hands won’t need telling where the Royal Albert Hospital was.
No nautical ‘heroine’ is more famous. In fact it’s safe to say that sailors who haven’t heard of this song aren’t real sailors. She’s got a lot in common with those NEW YORK GIRLS on Side One. The originators of the words didn’t seem sure whether she was going to Botany Bay or Van Dieman’s Land. Also I can’t help feeling that ‘farmer’s clod’ has been toned down from a stronger expression, but that’s how I heard it.
CYRIL TAWNEY
Tune of
‘Stanley the Rat’ traditional: All other words & music Copyright Cyril Tawney.
Dates after titles indicate year of completion.
4. The Grey Funnel Line (1959)
5. The Lean And Unwashed Tiffy (1958)
7. The Ballad Of Sammy’s Bar (1958)
Only a slightly exaggerated account of a true event. The song soon found its way into Royal circles, and may even have been the reason ‘cheering instructions’ were changed for the Silver Jubilee Review.
As well as breaking hearts, sailors also have them broken, and my output contains several in that vein. Inspiration came from various shipmates as well as my vulnerable young self. Submariners seemed particularly prone, and the accompaniment mimics a submarine’s diesel engines. Probably my most successful song. I’ve heard Bob Dylan, Marianne Faithfull and many others singing it, but its initial popularity was undoubtedly due to Davy Graham.
Chorus: (after each verse except last).
Sally free and easy, that should be her name
Sally free and easy, that should be her name
Took a sailors loving, for a nursery game.
Well the heart she gave me, was not made of stone
No the heart she gave me, was not made of stone
It was sweet and hollow, like a honeycomb.
Sally free and easy, that should be her name
Sally free and easy, that should be her name
Took a sailors loving, for a nursery game.
Think I’ll wait till sunset, see the ensign down
Yes I’ll wait till sunset, see the ensign down
Then I’ll take the tideway, for my burial ground.
Sally free and easy, that should be her name
Sally free and easy, that should be her name
When my body’s landed, hope she dies of shame
Though intending it as a refill for fire extinguishers, the Navy turned a blind eye to the unofficial use of carbon tetrachloride (CTC) as a cleaning fluid, while taking good care to warn of the hazards. A po-faced instructor’s cautionary anecdote later launched me in to this piece of fancy.
You get used to being away from home, but it takes a little time, a period during which nostalgia, love, or a bit of both can bring a great deal of misery, especially around sunset. ‘The Grey Funnel Line’ is the bluejacket’s nickname for the Royal Navy.
Don’t mind the rain or the rolling sea
The weary night never worries me
But the hardest time in a sailors day
Is to watch the sun, as it dies away.
It's one more day, on the grey, funnel line.
The finest ship that sailed the sea
Is still a prison for the likes of me
But give me wings, like Noah's dove
I'd fly up harbour, to the girl I love.
It's one more day, on the grey, funnel line.
There was a time my heart was free
Like a floating spar on the open sea
But now the spar is washed ashore
It comes to rest at my real love's door.
It's one more day, on the grey, funnel line.
Every time I gaze behind the screws
It makes me long for old Peter's shoes
Id walk right on down that silver lane
And take my love, in my arms again.
It's one more day, on the grey, funnel line.
Oh Lord if dreams were only real
I’d have my hands, on that wooden wheel
With all my heart, I'd turn her round
And tell the boys, that we're homeward bound.
It's one more day, on the grey, funnel line.
I'll pass the time like some machine
Until the blue water turns to green
Then I'll dance on down that walk ashore
And sail the grey, funnel line no more.
Shakespeare, in “King John”, Act IV, Scene 2, has Hubert refer to “Another lean unwash’d artificer”. The Navy’s full of them, known as ‘Tiffies’ for short. I was one, so was my brother, and so was fellow-songwriter Tom Lewis. Civvies are advised that the nearest old salt will gladly interpret the navy slang in return for a drop of rum.
Even more slang here, I’m afraid. The singer voices the thoughts of a dead matelot awaiting burial at sea.
Those of my spies who’ve been lucky enough to revisit lovely old Malta tell me that ‘Sammy’s Bar’, at the head of Pieta Creek, has been demolished. Shame. In the 50’s the Submarine Depot Ship HMS ‘Forth’ was just round the corner, and the bar sold very cheap, but very strong, white wine. It was cramped, but the acoustics were marvellous, and it became a favourite venue for me and my guitar. The tale, though, is totally fictitious.
More pulsating submarine rhythms from the guitar. A straightforward autobiographical account of my four years non-voluntary underwater service, ending with a fond farewell to three skippers who, understandably, weren’t exactly fans of mine.
It is pay night in Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, or anywhere similar. You are in a bar. Suddenly, silently, a lone matelot appears in the doorway. Listen on from there. Not much action, I’m afraid, and it’s all over in seconds without a word being spoken, but it was a common enough sight once a fortnight back in the days of large fleets, uniforms ashore, plentiful sailor bars and strong, gas-free beer.
A Demobbed sailor finds out too late that the girl loved the uniform, not him. Nowadays the uniform rarely leaves the ship, but I’ll bet the situation can still occur, metaphorically if not literally.
By now you’ll have gathered that 1958 was a very year for Tawney songs, and there were several unfinished products clogging the pipeline. I got rid of them by constructing a mock sea shanty, with a chorus linking the odds and ends. No space here to explain every bit of jargon, but ‘chicken on a raft’ was a fried egg on fried bread, ‘dab- toes’ were seamen and ‘dustmen’ were stokers. Ask that thirsty old navy veteran about the rest. A debt of gratitude is due to the late Royston Wood and the Young Tradition for popularising this song.
You need to be quite an old hand to recall the lone character who stood outside Albert Gate, Devonport, late each night selling ‘oggies’ (Cornish pasties) to sailors returning from a run ashore. (how on earth did he keep them warm?). Everyone thought this minor institution would last as long as the Navy itself, but the blitz gave the chance for rival hot dog stands to establish themselves on the bomb site opposite (many post-war sailors confuse these with the Oggie Man himself), and he was forced to abandon his pitch, if not his trade. I imagined a sailor newly back from abroad. He finds two unforeseen changes. First, the girl hasn’t waited. Ruefully he remembers their last farewell, right here at the Albert Gate, when she likened the permanence of her love to that of the nearby Oggie Man. Now he’s aware of the second change, and bitterly he realises there’s more than one way of telling the truth.
Oh the rain’s softly falling, and the Oggie man’s no more
I can’t hear him calling, like I used to do before.
I came through the gateway and I heard the sergeant say,
The big boys are coming, see their stands across the way
Oh the rain’s softly falling, and the Oggie man’s no more
T’was here that she told me, when she bid me goodbye
There’s none that will miss you, not half as much as I
My love will endure dear, like the beacon in the squall
Eternal as the Oggie man, beneath the dockyard wall
Oh the rain’s softly falling, and the Oggie man’s no more
On My first ship I was given a hammock billet nobody wanted. It was right under some channel plating carrying electric wires through the ship which a rat used for his nightly excursions. He never bothered me though. I called him Stanley and wrote him a little poem, which I later found would fit the tune of ‘Brian O’Lynn’.
Seeking a divorce from My Lady Alcohol on medical grounds leads above all to a social dilemma. The problem’s universal, of course, not purely naval, but it’s especially familiar to former long-service RN personnel, and one reason why some chaps have to give up attending those reunions.
Cyril Tawney