Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK

Subject: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: 8_Pints
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 02:16 PM

I was discussing the source of a song 'A-begging I will go' last Saturday night with friends, and learnt that the version I was interested in was collected from Becket Whitehead, Delph.

A google search identified a number of other songs he was associated with (Gallant Poacher & Four Loom Weaver). Click here 'All Jolly Fellows'

Does anyone else know the extent of his repertoire, and what recordings or publications may be published?

What do we know of him as a singer?

Bob vG

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 12 Jan 14 - 07:37 PM

Have a search for Harry Buckley Whitehead who was my great uncle. There's quite a lot in his publications about Becket. I have quite a bit of stuff about them, I'll see if I can digitise it and share. Get in touch if you want marcuswhitehead at msn dot com

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 12 Jan 14 - 07:41 PM

I just realised the song you mean, it was published with melody in mike hardings 'songs of old Lancashire' I hadn't made the connection til now. I perform it myself. Small world!

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 08:18 AM

Are you interested in ultimate sources, evolution or just the source of that one version? I'd certainly be interested in these repertoires for the Yorkshire Garland project. Isn't Delph one of those debatable places on the border, like Saddleworth?

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 09:11 AM

Delph is one of the villages that make up Saddleworth - along with Uppermill, Greenfield, Diggle, & Dobcross. Have I missed one?

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 09:35 AM

Yes, Steve, Delph was historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire but is now (I believe) part of Oldham at local government level.

Marcus, I would be most interested to read what you've found. Was your great uncle Harry the composer of the poem 'Hard Times' by any chance ("You munnat come again, hard times, for Owdham's had its share")?

A draft of Beckett Whitehead's unpublished autobiography is available in Saddleworth museum. It doesn't say much about songs, though there is a reference to a musical evening at which an uncle (?) played the melodeon.

The songs that Seamus Ennis recorded from Beckett Whitehead - which are in the sound archive at the Vaughan Williams Library - were 'A-Begging I Will Go' (to a much cheerier tune than the folk revival one, which is probably a MacColl composition), 'The Gallant Poacher', 'The Mowing Match', 'Old Towler' and 'Jim the Carter's Lad'. As far as I remember his versions were all somewhat fragmentary (only a couple of verses of 'Gallant Poacher' for instance), but Mr. Whitehead's singing voice was very pleasant, accurate and clear.

Two songs are credited as having been collected by MacColl from him. These were 'Drinking' (a highly subversive piece that Harry Boardman recorded as 'I Means to Get Jolly Well Drunk' - anyone know more about this one?) and 'The Four Loom Weaver'. It's been my suspicion for years that MacColl composed the soaring Dorian modal melody associated with 'Four Loom' in the folk revival, and Roy Palmer in 'Working Songs' comes to the same conclusion. The lyrics belong to one of the 'John O' Greenfield' broadsides, more usually sung to a major tune that A. L. Lloyd published in 'Folk Song in England'. It may have been that Mr. Whitehead - an expert in dialect verse - submitted only the lyric to MacColl.

It occurred to me recently, after reading Mike Bettison's piece in
English Dance and Song, in which he suggested that MacColl composed the well-known tune for 'Scarborough Fair', to compare that soaring Dorian melody with the one for 'Four Loom Weaver'. Try it yourselves, it's very instructive.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Jonesnudger
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 11:24 AM

Snuffy - you did miss one village: Denshaw.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 11:51 AM

Blimey Brian, I'm no musicologist, but they do seem to follow the same structure..... wonder what the dotes look like in notation?
Derek

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 03:09 PM

Very interesting!

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 03:23 PM

Here's a version of the song "Hard Times" off an old folk album, it may play in your browser, or it may download it to your computer :-

Hard Times by Harry Buckley Whitehead

I found this info online -

Hard Times
by H. B. Whitehead (1890 - 1966)

From 'Lancashire Miscellany', edited by James Benett, published by Hirst, Kidd & Rennie Ltd., Oldham, 1960.

Harry Buckley Whitehead was a Saddleworth poet born at Diggle, where my great grandfather, Robert Buckley Sykes, was also born, in 1856. At the age of six he moved to Hilltop near Delph where he lived until about 13, working as a woollen piecer, and it was there he began to feel the first stirrings of a poetic nature. His greatest success has come in poems descriptive of the countryside. He also wrote poetry in standard English and he was a friend of Ammon Wrigley. An internet site notes: "He started work in the mill at thirteen and remained a mill worker until his retirment in the early 1950s. In 1963 his 'Rhymes of a Village Poet' was published, but the book is not readily available.'"

The following poem sounds like the work of one who has been through 'hard times' in the cotton industry. Given his epoch that could only be the slump after the short-lived boom that followed the First World War, and led to the terminal decline of the Lancashire cotton industry, but the poem doesn't quite have that ring. The folk memory in Lancashire of hardship suffered by the cotton industry workers was long, however (as hinted in the poem), so conceivably Whitehead is harking back to a time in 1892 when he was a toddler and a strike of over twenty weeks duration paralysed Oldham and ended with hunger and nakedness in the streets of the town. Or it might have been a time 30 years earlier during the Cotton Famine, when the American Civil War meant that no raw cotton could reach Lancashire and again there was actual starvation and widespread hardship.

'Hard Times' has been set to music and can be heard movingly sung by Mark Dowding - click on his name to find the CD.
Hard Times
by H. B. Whitehead

Yoh munnut come agen hard times;
We thowt those days were done,
When th' dust lay thick i' th' jinny-gate,
Where the wheels no longer run;
When th' yed-stocks stood like silent ghosts,
And th' straps and ropes were still;
Where o abeawt 'em seemed to say,
"There's nowt to do i' th' mill."

Yoh munnut come agen hard times,
For Owdham's had its share.
When th' purse were thin, and times were bad,
And ther' weren't mich to spare;
When nob'dy axed, or seemed to care,
Heaw were its troubles met?
Thoose wounds lie deep, the scars remain,
The folk remember yet.

Yoh munnut come to haunt these streets,
Where once yoh left your mark;
Where care and want together walked,
Wi' thousands eawt o' wark;
Where daycent men, fro' daycent whoms,
Wi' brocken heart and soul,
Went trudgein' deawn that hopeless road,
To th' means test and the dole.

Explanations:
Jinny-gate - part of the cotton-spinning machinery
Yed-stocks - head-stocks, also part of the machinery


Harry Whitehead eulogized the men of his native soil in the following words:

"The Greenfield men are more than good,
They fetch the coal and chop the wood;
And ev'ry morn 'tis good to see,
They make their wives a cup of tea;
Then off to work to earn their bread,
Each with a halo round his head;
They're all house trained and live to please,
They are the Lord's annointed these."

I shall dig what I can out of my dad's collection of family writings. It may take me couple of weeks to do so, but I will be back to this thread with what I can.

Very interested in the recordings of Becket Whitehead, listed in the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library recordings. Anyone know how to obtain copies of these?

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 03:48 PM

Marcus ... Becket Whitehead does not appear in a search of the British Library sound recordings, so the only alternative is to contact the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library [e-mail]
Derek

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 07:54 PM

"Blimey Brian, I'm no musicologist, but they do seem to follow the same structure"

I don't have time to do the dots just now, Derek, but I'd say the first two lines of the verse are uncannily similar.

The thought came to me while drifting off to sleep in my room at Halsway Manor during a song weekend last November. I nearly fell out of bed!

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 13 Jan 14 - 07:59 PM

Hi Marcus - yes that's Harry Boardman singing 'Hard Times' that you've linked. I think he did a better version on 'Golden Stream; it's a very powerful piece of writing. Mark Dowding and I both knew Harry well.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,OldNicKilby
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 05:30 AM

This is Mudcat at it's very best

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 07:46 AM

I share the "Well, blow me down" reaction to Brian's revelation about MacColl's tunes for 'Scarborough Fair' and 'Four Loom Weaver'.

The most drastic difference between the latter and Lloyd's "Poor Cotton Wayver" to the 'John O' Greenfield' tune is that one has 4-line verses and the other 6-line. Would MacColl have thrown away two lines of each verse? Or had Whitehead done that, or someone else at an earlier stage?

Richard

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 08:37 AM

The broadside copies of this, as per all the 'Jone' ballads have six-line stanzas. Not sure without more checking whether there are any versions with four lines, aside MacColl / Whitehead.

Joan O' Grinfield

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: C Stuart Cook
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 08:41 AM

If I remember rightly Four Loom Weaver/Poor Cotton weaver appears in Mrs Gaskell's Mary Barton.

I also have it in a private printing of Lancashire Ballads where it appears as on of the John O' Grinfelt series as stated earlier. I think mine gives it's title as J O G Jr. I'll dig it out and check.

I've always said that the words date from a time when the mills only spun cotton and then put the yarn out to outworkers (handloom weavers). Initially in the Industrial revolution this group of workers were a highly skilled group (males) who commanded high wages. This was certainly the case in my own Gee Cross, Hyde area. The cotton spun in the early Ashton Bros mill was bottle necked by the lack of weavers on a number of occasion leading to drops in spun cotton prices and layoffs in the mills for the cotton operatives.

As the hand loom weavers needed to be based in one spot this led to the conversion or building of the Weavers loft properties still to be seen around older settlements in the Uppermill and surrounding areas. This was unlike the earlier generation of weavers such as depicted in Silas Marner (The Weaver of Raveloe) who moved around the communities to weave their spun threads.

Once these highly skilled workers lost their mobility they were susceptible to shortages to supply in the spun cotton supplies and the whole vicious cycles of supply/shortages/demand/prices etc started to bite.


Working four looms (four in hand , or sometimes more)ie Four Loom weaver, came in when the automatic power looms came in. These were usually located in the big north light weaving sheds built around the 4 or 5 storey spinning mills. These were worked by women. My understanding is that this job was rarely done by men. The men did however usually work the big spinning mules. A role reversal from the early days of the cotton industry.

I won't claim this to be a precise analysis of the Cotton trade so don't come wading in with minute historical inconsistencies but generally it went along those lines.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 11:44 AM

Thanks, Stuart, that's all very interesting. You're right about Mary Barton, too.

John Harland and T.T. Wilkinson's Ballads and Songs of Lancashire, from the 1880s, includes a version very like the broadside I linked above, but in stronger dialect. It was collected 'from the singing of an old hand-loom weaver at Droylsden' and - according to Harland - written just after the battle of Waterloo. Harland wrote that it was 'still a favourite in many parts of Lancashire'.

Comparing these texts with the folk revival version, it's clear that a skillful piece of re-writing has been carried out. As Richard Mellish points out, the stanzas have been reduced from six lines to four, but some of the surplus phrases from lines 5 & 6 ("He ne'er picked o'er in his life"; "I've woven myself to th' far end") have been accommodated by repeating the opening lines ("I'm a four loom weaver as many's the man knows / I've nowt to eat, and I've wore out my clothes") and making two new verses. Five of the old verses have been cut.

The pious and complacent parson's role ("We should have better times if I'd hold my tongue") is re-allocated to 'Bill O' Bent', who appears in the broadside as a debtor.

The closing lines:
"Hoo's nowt agen th' king, but hoo likes a fair thing
And hoo says hoo can tell when hoo's hurt"

have disappeared, leaving the verse to end on the less conciliatory:

"Hoo swears hoo would fight, blood up to the een"
('Hoo = 'She' in Lancashire dialect, of course)

Harland tells us that those last three lines were 'household words' at the time of his publication.

Which still leaves the mystery of when the ballad was re-written, and by whom!

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 12:30 PM

I'm a bit of a novice.

Can anyone offer any advice on how to get hold of the recordings of Becket Whitehead?

I can see that he has been recorded, some are held by the BBC, however some are held elsewhere, the name Peter Kennedy keeps cropping up, but i'm getting a bit bogged down. I can see the recordings are out there, but not how to actually get them.

The Vaughan Williams library have suggested I get in touch with the BBC to get permission for their recordings, but what about the folktrax recordings.

I know I could find these answers myself, but I was hoping that someone night have been through the process themselves, and be able to shed light on their experience and how they got to where I am trying to get to.

Thanks if anyone can help.

I'll get onto my dad about the Becket and H.B. archives he holds

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 12:31 PM

Previous comment by me ^^^

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 01:00 PM

Marcus, I listened to the Becket Whitehead recordings by going down to Cecil Sharp House in London (where they are held in the VWML), but there would probably be a charge for a non-member of EFDSS.

The recordings were made by Seamus Ennis as part of a BBC folksong recording project in the 1950s, in which the late Peter Kennedy was involved. Some of the recordings have been issued by Topic Records (on Voice of the People 2), and some of Kennedy's own material is on the British Library online sound archive, but not the Whitehead recordings (see above).

Camsco Music in the USA owns the licenses for Kennedy's Folktrax label (about which there has been much controversy that probably won't interest you) - this included a lot of the BBC recordings.

I believe I have the recording of 'The Gallant Poacher' somewhere, so PM me (hit the 'PM' button after my name above) with your email address, and I'll see what I can do.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 02:29 PM

okay, i managed to order copies of "Songs of the Trades" and "Songs of the Country" from http://www.camscomusic.com

wasn't so hard after all :-s

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 14 Jan 14 - 02:35 PM

Hi Brian

thanks for the response

perhaps I need to be a member of mudcat to see the pm link, but my email address is

marcuswhitehead at msn dot com

as i say, i managed to find two recordings from camsco,, i think these were non bbd recordings, but are you saying there may be more there at camsco too?

The search facility at camsco is quite specific and i couldn't find owt with a search for 'whitehead', for example, or a-beggin (needed the apostrophe - a-beggin')

Thanks ever so much

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Kendrick
Date: 15 Jan 14 - 04:51 AM

Hey , You guys , Becket Whitehead was far better known as a local archeologist and geologist. He had trays of flint arrow heads that he picked up while walking on the moors and small samples of stone. All labelled .
He was a Fellow. Of the Royal Geographical society of. London.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 15 Jan 14 - 06:00 AM

Marcus ... Just checking that you have looked at the Folktrax Archive...
http://folktrax-archive.org/menus/performer_w.htm

Derek

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 15 Jan 14 - 06:18 AM

Hi Kendrick - yes, I knew that about BW's geological credentials, also his interest in local history and dialect poetry. It's odd in a way that folk enthusiasts define him by his songs, which were probably quite a small element in his life.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: C Stuart Cook
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 07:58 AM

Brian, having checked back the book I was thinking of was one I bought nearly 40 years ago at an Eccles auction house and is indeed the Harland one. An excellent book it is too. I presume the FSA after his name is The Society of Antiquarians? It's not the one I was thinking of though. I had one at one time that declard itself to be a private printing. Can't put my fingers on it at the moment.

Harland book is 1865?, Mary Barton was 1848 but presumably Mrs G knew of it some time before that. Is there an earlier published record of it.

The Harland one amazed me at the time with the huge amount of material in it and it's "doings". London publisher, Edinburgh printer and Lancashire verse. The world was supposed to be much smaller then. it wasn't of course but still an impressive coverage of the British isles in it's production.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 16 Jan 14 - 11:18 AM

Ah yes, the great John Harland that well-known Yorkshireman from Hull.
I think the printing company he founded is still running or was until recently.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 01:43 PM

Just found this recording, not Becket, but...

A-beggin' I Will Go by The Elliots of Birtley

Find out more about this here

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 17 Jan 14 - 09:59 PM

There's a cracking version of Four Loom Weaver by Becket Whitehead on Grooveshark

Four Loom Weaver sung by Louis Killen

The album is "Gallant Lads Are We: Songs of the British Industrial Revolution"
and Killen delivers the songs brilliantly.

Enjoy

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 08:00 AM

Marcus ... I think the tunes used for both these songs you've posted - the Elliotts singing Beggin' and Louis singing Four Loom Weaver - are quite possibly Ewan MacColl re-writes rather then the tunes that Becket Whitehead sang. Of course, no-one recorded Becket singing Four Loom Weaver.

Beggin. Harry Boardman recorded this twice - First, on New Voices in 1965, where the notes (written by Bert Lloyd) say that it was obtained by MacColl from Becket. It uses the "MacColl tune", same as the Elliotts, though Harry sang it a lot faster. And second on A Lancashire Mon in 1973, where he used a different tune. The notes (written by Harry) say that this version comes from Becket, and adds: "A version of this song which is currently sung in the folk clubs, has a more modal tune, the origin of which is uncertain." He is referring to the "MacColl tune". MacColl himself recorded it on The Manchester Angel, where he says it is a "19th century Lancashire version".

The song is not in Harry and Lesley Boardman's song book, but it is in Mike Harding's song book, where it is described as collected from Becket by Herbert Smith and MacColl. [Who is Herbert Smith??] This tune looks to me to be the MacColl tune.

It seems highly likely that Harry got his second tune from the Seamus Ennis recording.

Four Loom Weaver. It's in MacColl's Shuttle and cage song book, 1954, and on Steam Whistle Ballads LP. Both attributed to Becket and both the tune that is similar to Scarboro fair (see above from Brian Peters). Same as the Louis Killen version quoted in the above message. This is a different tune to the one recorded by Bert Lloyd on The Iron Muse, which he says comes from Kidson's A Garland of English Folk Song. I don't have a copy of that book I'm afraid!

So, perhaps Becket didn't sing either of the two well known tunes to Four Loom Weaver. And perhaps, as Brian suggests, he just gave the lyrics to MacColl.

Derek

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 08:33 AM

Thanks for the additional detail, Derek. All of that fits in with my own understanding of the situation, and I certainly remember Harry singing 'Begging' to the original Whitehead tune.

I've talked this over by email with Marcus, and he was kind enough to copy for me the note in MacColl's The Singing Island to Four loom Weaver:

"The version printed here was noted from the singing of Becket Whitehead of Delph, near Oldham, in 1947. Mr.Whitehead, at that time nearly eighty years old, had learned the song from his father, himself a hand loom weaver, and an active Chartist"

So MacColl was definitely claiming that BW sung it to him, not just supplied the words (and, according to Harland above, the song would indeed have been current in his father's day). However, in the light of the recent Scarborough Fair research, I'm still sceptical that the MacColl tune was ever sung to him by BW. And why, come to that, didn't BW sing it for Seamus Ennis and his tape recorder five years later?

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 08:59 AM

Hi Derek, Brian,

I hope that I'll soon be able to get to the bottom of this. I'm just struggling to find the time with work commitments and so forth, so I really appreciate all the knowledge and info you have both already collected, it takes a lot of the legwork out for me.

Also, whilst a bit of a folky myself, I'm on the contemporary side of things, I have always written and performed music, but I

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 10:18 AM

Uh (cont...)

I really no knowledge of the history of folk at all, so I'm starting from scratch. It's really helpful that you guys seem to know so much about who did what and when, and where to look for info etc.

I intend to ultimately set up a website with all the info available about this pair of poets, along with what is known by those who knew them, in my family, and now i think about it there may well be some of their friends still knocking about Saddleworth.

If only I;d started this quest before my grandmother, Olive Whitehead, died a few years ago! Aargh! She was H.B.'s sister in law. I bet I can wring info out of my dad and his siblings.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 18 Jan 14 - 10:27 AM

The website idea would be great.

Marcus, have you come across Sid Calderbank? He's an expert in Lancashire dialect, gives workshops on 'Jone O' Grinfilt', and might well be interested in chatting about your two relatives.

Sid's website

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 24 Jan 14 - 10:04 AM

Thanks for that Brian

I've also got in touch with Paul Salveson

I'll keep you posted on developments

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 04 Feb 14 - 10:02 AM

Derek - regarding this comment -

"Beggin. Harry Boardman recorded this twice - First, on New Voices in 1965, where the notes (written by Bert Lloyd) say that it was obtained by MacColl from Becket. It uses the "MacColl tune", same as the Elliotts, though Harry sang it a lot faster. And second on A Lancashire Mon in 1973, where he used a different tune. The notes (written by Harry) say that this version comes from Becket, and adds: "A version of this song which is currently sung in the folk clubs, has a more modal tune, the origin of which is uncertain." He is referring to the "MacColl tune". MacColl himself recorded it on The Manchester Angel, where he says it is a "19th century Lancashire version".

The song is not in Harry and Lesley Boardman's song book, but it is in Mike Harding's song book, where it is described as collected from Becket by Herbert Smith and MacColl. [Who is Herbert Smith??] This tune looks to me to be the MacColl tune.

It seems highly likely that Harry got his second tune from the Seamus Ennis recording. "

I just listened to the version off "A Lancashire Mon" and it IS definitely the Becket tune on the Seamus Ennis recordings, although the lyrics differ. The lyrics used by Harry are very similar to those printed in Mike Hardings book

here's the Becket version to listen to, here

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 04 Feb 14 - 11:59 AM

Marcus,
That was great! Nothing like the real McCoy, as opposed to the unreal MacColl.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 04 Feb 14 - 06:57 PM

Excellent Marcus - very many thanks for that. Did it come from VWML?
Derek

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,MW
Date: 06 Feb 14 - 04:24 AM

CAMSCO, Derek.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 08 Feb 14 - 01:42 PM

Hi

I've just got hold of Becket's memoirs.

There's a selection of poem's by H.B. regarding Becket's death that I've uploaded as a test on google docs here

There's also an interesting list of participants in a cricket match, with some particularly amusing names.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 09 Feb 14 - 05:52 AM

Sounds like Clown Cricketers ... have a google on that name, and also Comic Cricketers...
Derek

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 10 Feb 14 - 07:18 AM

Thanks Derek, I'll see what the previous page says. Did I read you are part of Saddleworth Historical Society?

In the meantime I'm trying to track down anyone who might know some songs written by my great uncle, Harry Buckley Whitehead.

There are four that I know of that he wrote the words for:

"March of the Home Guard", "Delph", "Song of the Cenotaph" and "Bonnie Grenfilt"

Bonnie Grenfilt was sung by Albert Widdall

March of the Home Guard and Bonnie Grenfilt were put to music by A. Radcliffe (Alec?)

Delph was put to music by A. Pogson

Are any of these names you recognise at all? Or perhaps you can point me in another direction

This is part of a project I've set myself to collate the works by H.B. Whitehead and Becket Whitehead of Saddleworth

I'm a singer myself. I'm currently brushing up the "Mowing Match Ballad" about a competition between lads at Freisland and Friarmere in Delph, Sadddleworth

Thanks if you can offer any advice

Marcus

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 10 Feb 14 - 09:45 AM

Don't know about these specific songs Marcus (and I'm not in Saddleworth Historical Society - I live in Cheshire, but of course Schofield is a familiar name in the area we are talking about).

There's a song called Friezland Ale, which is sung by Will Noble (who lives out near Denby Dale). That song was written by Ammon Wrigley from saddleworth, died 1946, local historian who published Songs of a Moorland parish. Seto to music by Hugh Beech, who sang it in the Royal Tiger, Austerlands near Oldham in the 1920s.

That might give some clues about putting tunes to words in the area!

Any connection with the brass band scene up there (in terms of writing tunes..)

Derek

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 14 - 11:36 AM

"(which is probably a MacColl composition)"
Attributed to Richard Broome's "The Jovial Crew" (mid 17th century) and acquired via a manuscript from Mary Brooksbank.
"English Dance and Song, in which he suggested that MacColl composed the well-known tune for 'Scarborough Fair"
MacColl's tune is virtually the same as Frank Kidson's Whittingham Fair
That MacColl adapted and changed the tunes he collected was never in doubt - Isn't that what most revival singers do?
Just been listening to Killen's recording of Weaver - still sends a tingle.
MacColl and Joan Littlewood recorded Becket for a programme entitled The Ballad Hunters in the forties.
They neither retained a copy of the recordings nor, as far as I can establish, did the BBC.
More later
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 10 Feb 14 - 12:44 PM

Sorry - a senior moment - scrap the Mary Brooksbank reference
Trying to annotate 400 Clare songs at the same time.
In the mid-sixties MacColl had a file of ms versions of all the songs collected for The Ballad Hunters, with tune annotations.
They, like all the songs on file, were made available to anybody who requested them
I got Becket's The Mowing Match and Drinking from the file and have been singing them for years.
MacColl had no hesitation in adapting the songs he got from anywhere, canging the words and adding tunes.
These included those he got from his father - we were told by one of William Miller's contemporaries that he had a load of "bits of queer old songs"
I'm pretty convinced MacColl learned fragments from his father and mother built them up into full songs at a later stage (probably a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys are in order to some people).
As far as I know, MacColl never denied having done this, not in my hearing anyway - he did what every other singer of traditional songs has done since the beginning of the revival.
I've never heard him claim any of his versions to be genuine - on the contrary - he encouraged us as singers to improve the songs is we felt it necessary.
MacColl had an established repertoire of traditional songs before the revival was a twinkle in his or anybody's eye- I never tire of putting this up:

"Ewan MacColl was himself a victim of the Depression. The son of an unemployed Glasgow steelworker, who had moved to Salford in search of work during the twenties, he had suffered every privation and humiliation that poverty could contrive for him from the age of ten. His memories of his early years are still bitter—like his recollection of how to kill aimless time in a world where there was nothing else to do: "You go in the Public Library. And the old men are there standing against the pipes to get warm, all the newspaper parts are occupied, and you pick a book up. I can remember then that you got the smell of the unemployed, a kind of sour or bitter-sweet smell, mixed in with the smell of old books, dust, leather and the rest of it. So now if I pick up, say, a Dostoievsky—immediately with the first page, there's that smell of poverty in 1931."
MacColl had been out busking for pennies by the Manchester theatres and cinemas. The songs he sang were unusual, Scots songs, Gaelic songs he had learnt from his mother, border ballads and folk-songs. One night while queueing up for the three-and-sixpennies, Kenneth Adam had heard him singing outside the Manchester Paramount. He was suitably impressed. Not only did he give MacColl a handout; he also advised him to go and audi¬tion for Archie Harding at the BBC studios in Manchester's Piccadilly."
PROSPERO AND ARIEL (The rise and fall of radio, a personal recollection – D G Bridson 1971)

Whether people like MacColl's remakes and his way of singing is a matter of personal taste - if someone asked me if I preferred his versions to some of the over-accompanied hiccoughy, gappy, idiosyncratic, droney renditions of traditional songs and ballads I've come across over the last half century I wouldn't hesitate for a second.
Pat and I are hoping to put together two, hour-long radio programmes on MacColl for Irish radio later this year (grant willing) hopefully concentrating on his work and ideas rather than the garbage mountain of personal stuff one has to scramble over whenever his name is mentioned.
Back to annotating
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: GUEST,Marcus Whitehead
Date: 10 Feb 14 - 02:13 PM

Derek - it was a Derek Scholes that recently joined the historical society, sorry about that!

Thanks for the ideas, i've messaged will noble, and of course the brass bands might well know.

I grew up at Austerlands, it's part of Saddleworth. Our house overlooked the car-park where the Royal Tiger once was.


Jim:

"In the mid-sixties MacColl had a file of ms versions of all the songs collected for The Ballad Hunters, with tune annotations.
They, like all the songs on file, were made available to anybody who requested them
I got Becket's The Mowing Match and Drinking from the file and have been singing them for years."

Do you know how I can get copies of these please? is the ms versions you refer to the musical score?

I'd be thrilled to hear your version of Mowing Match, i've started doing it myself lately. Have you any recordings, or do you know when and where you might next do it?

Intrigued by the Drinking song too, i have no info on that one whatsoever

Thanks of you can help

Also, i've found a copy of "Bonnie Grenfilt" which is held at The British Library.

Of course, I could easily get a copy.

Why this stuff is always under lock and key I don't know, very frustrating. Talk about killing our connection with our roots.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Brian Peters
Date: 10 Feb 14 - 03:54 PM

"I got Becket's The Mowing Match and Drinking from the file and have been singing them for years"

That's interesting, Jim. Harry Boardman sang 'Drinking' and attributed it to Beckett W. via MacColl, but I've seen no other reference to it beyond that. So it may have been part of that BBC programme, then...

"MacColl's tune is virtually the same as Frank Kidson's Whittingham Fair"

Do you mean the 'Whit Fair' in Bruce & Stokoe? All the Kidson versions of 'Scarborough Fair' that I can find are major, but the B&S tune is modal, and I've thought before that it was the nearest trad tune to the MacColl one.

Personally I think his tune for 'Four Loom Weaver' is a magnificent match of words and melody, and I have no objection to him having done it - if indeed he did. I just like to tease out the sometimes tangled histories of as many of these revival favourites as possible.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Feb 14 - 03:29 AM

Marcus,
Can't tell you how delighted to learn that a relative of Beckett is still around and singing - one of my heroes.
"Do you know how I can get copies of these please?"
If they still exist they'll be with the MacColl archive at Ruskin College - if you have no luck, I hope to be seeing Peggy later in the next few months so I'll ask her.
Both Drinking and Mowing Match (I think) are included in Richards and Stubbs English Folksinger.
MacColl recorded Drinking on one of his albums - wonderful song.
I can't read music so I had to put my own tune to Mowing Match - the 'With Henry Hunt We'll Go' tune works for me.
Brian - pretty sure the version I learned was 'Whittingham Fair - think it's in Bronson and also in Kidson's 'Tunes' - will check later, but we're about to lose our electricity for the day (the joys of living in rural Ireland!!)
Will happily help with anything you wish to do (as always)
I'm pretty sure the producer of The Ballad Hunters was Olive Shaply, she produced a number of excellent documentaries on social and oral history.   
Greetings to all from The Dark Side
Jim Carroll

DRINKING

Some people   will tell you that drinking's a curse,
While others will tell you it's quite the reverse.
Some drink all their days their time to employ
Some drink when in sorrow and some drink for joy.
Some drink when they're christened, some when they're wed,
Some are drinking your jolly good health when you're dead,
Some drink on all these occasions, like I,
For I drunk at my birth and I'll drink till I die.

Ch. For I mean to get jolly well drunk, I do.
I mean to get jolly well drunk, I do
As long as J'm here I'll stlck to my beer,
For I mean to get jolly well drunk, I do.

I'll drink till the high price of coals becomes small,
Till ale and roast beef they cost nothing at all.
I'll drink till we have no more reasons for strikes,
Till a man values work just as much as he likes.
I'll drink till the law gives a man no denial
For taking a wife out a month upon trial,
Till the dukes and the lords have to sort clean from dirt
And the big Prince of Wales has to clean his own shirt.

I'll drink till all landlords choke as they guzzle.
I mean to keep drinking till bobbies are muzzled.
Till dandies are worth nowt but the clothes they put on.
I'll drink till old Peabody's money is gone.
I'll drink till the laws of the land are made fair
That punish a man for killing a hare.
I'll drink till all wealth is shared out amongst men
And I'll drink and I'll drink till it's shared out again.

Subject: RE: Becket Whitehead, Delph, Saddleworth, UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Feb 14 - 04:35 AM

Quickly before the lights go out
A story Ewan used to tell about Four Loom Weaver - may be Ewan's bullshit - he could have played for England in that as Peggy will tell you "Oh Ewan - stop exaggerating"!)
He was singing in a club in Brighton in the early days of the Revival when Big Bill Broonzy, who was guesting down the road, walked in.
Ewan sang "Weaver" and Broonzy came over later and said, "Man, I didn't know you honkies sang the blues".
Why didn't Beckett sing the song for Ennis?
The BBC project was little more than a head-hunting trip , whip it in, whip it out, and wipe it, so to speak.
You could have doubled the traditional repertoire with the songs that were missed from the singers they recorded
Maggie Murphy (one of the Chambers Sisters) had a largish repertoire that was missed, as did Cinnamond and loads of other singers.
Phil Tanner was claimed to have had 70 songs - the EFDSS couldn't round up enough to fill an LP and had to repeat one item to fill the album.
It was a great project and we'd all be much worse off without it, but no indication of the size or scope of the repertoire
Must go - darkness approaches
10, 9, 8, 7.....
Jim Carroll