This will be a PermaThread, edited by Ross Campbell. It will be interesting to see what he comes up with. Feel free to post to this thread, but remember that all messages are subject to editing or deletion.
-Joe Offer-
I know this won't be entirely about songs from Ron Baxter, but for now I'm going to crosslink it to the Ron Baxter threads. Here's the introduction from Ross, subject to editing:Hi, Joe,
I've been meaning to ask about setting up another Permathread for some time. Ideal title:- 'Fleetwood & Fishing: Songs of the Trawling Trade'.The initial purpose of the 'Fleetwood & Fishing Permathread' would be to represent the body of work that has arisen over the last thirty-odd years in Fleetwood (Lancashire, NW England), from the pens of Ron Baxter (Sailor Ron on Mudcat) and others, connected with the history of Fleetwood's fishing industry, the trawlers, trawlermen and all the supporting land-based trades and businesses that made the town what it was.
Ron's latest estimate is that he has written perhaps fifty songs just on this subject alone. As I keep finding items in forgotten computer files and re-discovering paper files containing things I don't even remember, the total could be far higher.
Ron's first effort was a song called "Lord Middleton", inspired by hearing of an old trawler being dismantled at the breaker's yard. Alan Bell added the tune and a verse, and performed the song with the Taverners for many years. For some time that was Ron's sole claim to song-writing fame. But in the early eighties, when he was running Fleetwood Folk Club, Ron came up with an idea to commemorate the then-disappearing distant-water fishing fleet. Borrowing some songs from the east coast fishing traditions and elsewhere, Ron added a script and a few songs, allocated them amongst the team of singers from the club and set up a fund-raising performance for the local Fleetwood lifeboat. The success of that small show fired up enthusiasm amongst the club members, drawing forth some amazing efforts. Further songs and poems came from Ron, Dick Gillingham and Dave Pearce, with the latter two calling on connections in Fleetwood's fishing community to produce a collection of slides which were used as a back-drop to a much-expanded show entitled "The Final Trawl", by this time featuring almost entirely locally-based material, songs, stories, poems and sketches. Presented in Fleetwood's North Euston Hotel as Fleetwood Folk Club's contribution to the town's series of Maritime England events in 1982, the show got a great reception, with many of the audience still having a direct connection to the events, ships and individuals described. During the couple of years when the club performed the show locally and further afield, the last distant-water trawler did indeed land its final catch at Fleetwood's Fish Dock.
Since then, Ron and a varying team of singers, story-tellers and musicians have presented many themed programmes based on the history of Fleetwood and the industry which once gave the town its character, always with fresh songs from Ron and the others.
Some of these shows were recorded, variously on reel-to-reel tape, cassette tape, video-tape, and latterly direct to computer hard-drive. The 'Final Trawl' was recorded for us by Dave Howard (BBC/Oldham Tinkers) in 1983. When the last cassette sold out, he kindly provided a CD master from the original tapes, re-mastered over two CDs (the show lasted 95 minutes) by the late Dave Ryan, so I still have CD-R copies available for sale. Other shows I still have to do some work on, and the state of the original recordings may mean some re-recording would be necessary before audio versions could be provided.
The range of material could later be extended to include Hull, Grimsby and other places with a similar history. I know many other songs that would fit well with the Fleetwood material. Many fishing families came to Fleetwood with the expansion of the industry from 1900 on, and there were always strong business and family links among the various fishing ports, and much shared experience.
Happy to have the Ron Baxter links, Joe. There will be more in the Merchant Navy Songs Permathread.
I can be contacted directly by PM on Mudcat or by email at rossjcampbell(at)excite.com
Ross