BILLY COCKED HAT (as sung by Gary & Vera Aspey on their 1962 LP 'Stories, Songs, Humour' Dingle's DIN 325)
Written by Don Bilston

I am a young man, I'm in my prime,
I work as hard as any man can.
Diggin' and pickin' at the railway line,
As a rough and tumble navvy-ing man.

Chorus.
In my billy cocked hat, silken waistcoat,
Cord'roy trousers tied at the knee.
A shovel, a pick and a one wheel barrow
And a jug full of gin when I takes my ease.

Living in a shanty feeding fleas,
Shoveling muck all through the day.
Maggoty meat and mouldy peas
And the tommy-shop takes nearly all my pay.

Every Sunday I go on the randy -
Find my way to the nearest town.
If I see a peeler with his truncheon hanging,
Well I ups with my fist and I knocks him down.

Blasting tunnels where the line runs deep,
Digging out bodies where the roof has fell.
There's many a navvy took a long, long sleep
Reward for his labours - a funeral bell.

Contract's finished, the navvy's gone
And trains now run on the lines they've laid.
And people will wonder at the jobs they've done
By the men that work at the navvy-ing trade.

Tommy shop is the English equivalent of the American 'company store'.