Hi Fred,

With all the foregoing words of welcome etc. has anyone given you the words of Rap Her To Bank?

My apologies if you have received them already.

Chorus: Rap her to bank, my canny lad, Wind her away, keep turning. The backshift men are ganning hame, We'll be back here in the morning.

My father used to call the turn When the last shift was ower. And ganning outby you'd hear him cry, D'ye knaa it's after fower?

Chorus:

And when that awful day arrived, The last shift for my father, A fal of stones and broken bones, But still above the clatter, he cried,

Final chorus: Rap her to bank, my canny lad, Wind her reet slow, that's clever. This poor old lad has taken bad. I'll be back here never.

The song comes from the North East of England.

In the old days the pitmen used to rap from the pit bottom to signal the cage to be wound up to the bank (surface)by means of a rapper rope hanging down the shaft and attached to the rapper at the top.

As far as I know it is a traditional song originating in Co Durham - hence the distinctive Geordie dialect. Almost a foreign language to the likes of us Southerners!

Dave R.