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03 Jul 97 - 01:07 PM (#8033) Subject: Source for Poverty Knock From: dick greenhaus Someone asked me this, and I'm afraid my incipient Altzheimer's has taken over. Who wrote Poverty Knock, and when. As I recall, it was in the 1960's (to everyone's surprise), but I can't find my references. |
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03 Jul 97 - 01:24 PM (#8034) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: Bert Hansell The Spinners recorded it if that's any help. |
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03 Jul 97 - 08:32 PM (#8043) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: Susan of DT According to the book Victoria's Inferno (songs of the old mills, mines, manufacturies, canals, and railways, edited by Jon Raven, 1978: Poverty Knock "text and melody: from the singing of Tom Daniel, a Batley, Yorkshire weaver (collected by A.E. Green 1965). Tom Daniel died in April 1970 aged 76." |
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08 Jul 97 - 06:09 PM (#8246) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: LaMarca A. L. Lloyd wrote in his book, "Folk Song in England" that Tom Daniel told Green in 1965 that he learned the song 60 years earlier in the first mill he worked in after leaving school. Doing the arithmetic,, Mr. Daniel was born in 1894, and started working in the mills in 1905, age 11... |
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08 Apr 03 - 03:54 PM (#928895) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: Willa Hester. Mill songswere not always jolly. You might find these useful: |
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08 Apr 03 - 05:04 PM (#928942) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: Herga Kitty Pete Coe sings "Poverty Knock", and reckons that Tom Daniel probably wrote it. I asked Pete about the source a year or so ago after I'd heard it introduced by Mike Harding on the radio as a traditional song, and Pete replied as follows: "The probable writer of 'Poverty Knock' was Tom Daniel, a weaver from Pudsey. I met him in about 1970, shortly before he died. He was born around 1890, left school at 11 & worked in various mills around W. Yorks. & did other jobs too, outside of weaving. The story he apparently told was that he'd remembered bits of the song from his early years. However, the song bears striking resemblance to many of the poems thathe did write. The collector of the song, Tony Green, reckons he wrote it too. I'm told there's no surviving relatives to claim royalties so as it's been designated a 'traditional' song for so long, that's how it's usually referred to." |
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08 Apr 03 - 06:00 PM (#928985) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: phil h Bill & Wendy Price lived in Dewsbury, close to Tommy Daniel's home in Batley. Wendy wrote in 1972 on the sleve notes to Bill's 'Fine old Yorkshire gentleman' LP that Tommy was best known for 'preserving and reconstructing' Poverty Knock. Around the time of Tommy's death much of his material was written down & a very few coppies were made, Wendy Price thinks someone borrowed her copy. Keith Pearson (who ran a music shop in Dewsbury) died 7 or 8 years ago & his copy was probably thrown out. A Guy called Dennis who now lives in Peterborough had a copy off Keith but can't find it. So does anyone know of any surviving copy? Did Mick Haywood (now in Whitby) have a copy? Phil |
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08 Apr 03 - 07:28 PM (#929066) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: Bat Goddess Well, all I was going to say was it's in Lloyd. I'd heard it before, but I actually learned it from Judy Cook. Linn |
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08 Apr 03 - 08:32 PM (#929113) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: Yorkshire Tony Word around the folk scene in Leeds when I were a lad was that in reconstructing it Tommy Daniel cleaned up the original material he remembered quite extensively as he considered it too risque for general performance. It would be very interesting to know the content of any original manuscript. |
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09 Apr 03 - 03:51 AM (#929288) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: greg stephens Any body know what happened to Tony(AE) Green, the man who collected the song(as quoted from AL Lloyd). Knew him well in the 60's, last heard he was doing something academic in Leeds. Any recent sightings? |
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09 Apr 03 - 08:01 AM (#929399) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: MikeofNorthumbria Hi Greg, My most recent contact with Tony - via our library, which has a copy of a book edited by Michael Pickering and Tony Green - "Everyday Culture: Popular song and the Vernacular Milieu" - Open University Press 1987. It has some very interesting material in it, though it also contains a few blinding glimpses of the obvious wrapped up in sociological jargon. eg "In reference if not in sense, cultural meaning is therefore local, and any methodology for describing it should begin with the defined locality. The obvious objection 'How local is local?', is actually as meaningless as it is obvious. Both objectively and subjectively, the 'local' is infinitely variable." Ho hum! Anyow, I'd be delighted to hear news of Tony, or even better, to make contact with the lad himself. Wassail! |
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09 Apr 03 - 11:58 AM (#929603) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: lamarca And Judy learned it from me, Linn, and I learned it from recordings by John and Rosie Goucher and Roy Harris (and subsequently I went back and added the two verses they skip...) I like Pete Coe's melancholy version, too. Another song that was done to death in English folk clubs, skipped across the Atlantic to a new life here in the U.S.! |
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13 Apr 03 - 02:15 PM (#932477) Subject: ADD Version: Poverty Knock From: Mary Humphreys This is the full text of the song as emailed to me by Angi & Mick Haywood over the weekend. They have also emailed a biog of Tommy which is too long to post. Anyone wanting it can PM me and I will send it on. POVERTY KNOCK Poverty, poverty knock, My loom is a-saying all day; Poverty, poverty knock, Gaffer's too skinny to pay: Poverty, poverty knock, Keeping one eye on the clock; I know I can guttle When I hear my shuttle, Go poverty, poverty knock. Up every morning at five, A wonder that we keep alive. Tired and yawning On a cold morning, Back to the old weary drive. Oh dear! We're going to be late, Gaffer is stood at the gate. We're out of pocket Our wages they dock it, We have to buy grub on the slate. Oh, how my poor hear sings, I should have woven three strings But threads are breaking My back is aching Oh dear, I wish I had wings. We have to wet our own yarn, Dipping it into the tarn It's wet an' soggy Makes us feel groggy, With mice in that dirty old barn. Sometimes a-shuttle flies out, Gives some poor weaver a clout; There she lies bleeding Nobody's heeding, Who's going to carry her out? Tuner should tackle my loom, He'd rather sit on his bum; He's much too busy A courtin' o'r Lizzie, I cannot get him to cum'. Lizzie is easily led, They say that her takes to be; She used to be skinny Now just look at her pinny It's just about time they were wed. This worksong dates back to the early power looms. Owing to low wages and the slow dreary "knock-ity knock" sound of the looms, weavers were called "Poverty Knockers. The tempo should be slow 3/4, but strongly accentuated. Also see this version (click) |
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14 Apr 03 - 06:09 AM (#932938) Subject: RE: Source for Poverty Knock From: Zany Mouse Although the tempo is supposed to replicate that of the loom, Sarah Davies, who is a professional weaver, says that it would be impossible to sing it fast enough to make it sounds like a loom! Good song though. ZM |
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29 Mar 09 - 08:21 PM (#2600118) Subject: Lyr Add: POVERTY KNOCK (from Roy Palmer) From: Nigel Parsons Slight variations, from a book "Poverty Knock" a picture of industrial life in the nineteenth century through songs, ballads and contempory accounts" Selected & edited by Roy Palmer (Cambridge University Press) ISBN 0 521 20443 7 This is quoted "as is". My only comment is that the scansion seems a little more regular! POVERTY KNOCK Poverty, poverty knock, My loom is a-sayin' all day; Poverty, poverty knock, Gaffer's too skinny to pay: Poverty, poverty knock, Keepin' one eye on the clock; I know I can guttle When I hear my shuttle, Go poverty, poverty knock. Up every mornin' at five, I wonder that we keep alive. Tired and yawnin' On a cold mornin', It's back to the dreary old drive. Oh dear! We're goin' to be late, Gaffer is stood at the gate. We're out o' pocket Our wages they're dockit, We'll 'a' to buy grub on the slate. And when our wages they'll bring, We're often short of a string.; And while we are fratchin' wi' gaffer for snatchin', We know to his brass he will cling. We've got to wet our own yarn, By dippin' it into the tarn It's wet an' soggy and makes us feel groggy, and there's mice in that dirty old barn. Oh dear my poor 'ead it sings, I should have woven three strings But threads are breakin' and my back is achin' Oh dear, I wish I had wings. Sometimes a-shuttle flies out, And gives some poor woman a clout; There she lies bleedin', but nobody's 'eedin', Who's goin' to carry her out? Tuner should tackle my loom, 'E'd rather sit on his bum; 'E's far too busy a-courtin' our Lizzie, And I cannot get him to come. Lizzie's so easy led,, I think that 'e takes her to bed She always was skinny, now just look at her pinny It's think it's high time they were wed. All variations from the version posted by Mary (above) are shown by "block printing" although this may be difficult to spot for the frequent replacement of the letter 'g' at the end of a word by an apostrophe! Cheers Nigel |
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29 Mar 09 - 09:48 PM (#2600146) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Austin P One of my favourite songs, - I grew up amongst' cotton mills: I've a couple of questions for the 'catters: "Tuner should tackle my loom" I learnt it in my callow youth as: "Tackler should fettle* me Loom" Which, to me, makes more sense. A 'tackler' was the roving supervisor/mechanic in a weaving shed, often despised and the butt of jokes (search for 'tacklers tales'). Mind you, that's Lancashire usage, it may be have been slightly different all of 10 miles away in W. Yorkshire ... Another thing (to my shame), I never sing the verse: We've got to wet our own yarn, By dippin' it into the tarn It's wet an' soggy and makes us feel groggy, and there's mice in that dirty old barn. Because I have no idea what it means. I remember steam being hissed into the weaving shed to keep the cotton damp (to stop it breaking), but as to wetting your own yarn? And what's a Barn got to do with it? I've always been baffled by that. And, being a bit pedantic (joke alert) Looms don't go 'knock', they go: THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM THRUMMEDEDUM Austin P *fix, tune, repair. |
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30 Mar 09 - 02:58 AM (#2600221) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: peregrina Poverty Knocks, words, notes & sound file at Yorkshire Garland |
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30 Mar 09 - 10:38 AM (#2600412) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Many years ago I went to a folk event in Pudsey, Leeds and spoke to a Mrs Fawthrope who was quiet elderly She maintained that she and Tom Daniel "remembered the verses" that the Poverty Knocker ladies sang and had made up I have no doubt that some embelishments were made by Tom Daniel in his performing of the song over time I am informed by Wendy price that he was about 5 feet tall and rarely bought his own beer as he couldn't get to the bar he was reputed to have spilled out a packet of condoms from his ukelle case in Dewsbury town hall late 1960s!! So Poverty Poverty Knocks, tap! tap! was mandatory My thanks to Mick Haywood for singing this one New Year for Yorkshire Garland Ray |
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30 Mar 09 - 04:43 PM (#2600724) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Steve Gardham Everyone connected with Tommy in the 60s is of the opinion he wrote at least most of it himself. There are different versions because Tommy gave the song to different people at different times and sang it slighly different each time. There are at least 2 recordings of him singing it, one by the Hudlestons can be heard at Sheffield University Library, and the other by Tony Green at Leeds University Library. It has been published many times. Neither recording was available to us to be used when we wanted a recording for the YG website so we asked the next best person, Mick Haywood of Batley who learnt it directly from Tommy, as with all of the other TD songs we have on the website. |
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15 Mar 10 - 11:36 PM (#2864957) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,Rob Naylor Regarding the origins, Tommy may have re-created it but my mum, a former Cleckheaton mill girl, used to sing a version of it to me in the late 50s, when I was very small, and all my aunts remembered singing it as girls in Popplewell Mill in the early 1930s. To Austin P: The Lancashire cotton looms may have gone "Thrumedumedum", but Yorkshire woollen looms definitely went "clickety clack". And I learned very early that my mum, all her sisters and other female relatives could lip-read perfectly well over large distances! The Yarn wetting verse is, I assume, due to them having to wash the excess dye out of the woollen yarn by rinsing it in the mill dam ("tarn"...not a word used locally for the mill dam...but I guess it makes the rhyme work). They'd started to use chemical dyes and some of them weren't very pleasant....the fumes from them could make the weavers feel bad. |
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16 Mar 10 - 06:22 AM (#2865093) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,padgett Thanks Rob Pete Coe asked me about this last Saturday, so it is still of interest ~ Pete Bellamy asked about this too ( along time ago) Note Mick Haywood says it is Tommy Daniel and Poverty Knocks (with the "s") Interesting about the clickety clack ~ like a railway noise LIsten also to the fine song Young Simon John sung by Ruth Price, if you come across 'em probably written by Tom Daniel I am advised that mill lasses were known as "Poverty Knockers around Huddersfield Ray |
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16 Mar 10 - 12:31 PM (#2865346) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Steve Gardham Rob, It would be very helpful to many of us if you can find or remember as much as possible about what was actually sung by anyone other than Tommy himself. Even a few words would be useful. To the majority of us it is just an excellent song rightly well liked and sung, but to a few of us nerds who like to delve into the history and background of such things any further information would be very welcome. |
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17 Mar 10 - 10:15 AM (#2866015) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: johnadams I've uploaded Pete Coe's rendering of the song to You Tube, along with seven other songs he performed at Cheltenham Folk Festival in 2006. Poverty Knock |
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08 Apr 10 - 09:40 PM (#2882529) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Rob Naylor Steve, I can't remember much of what my mum used to sing. Certainly nothing to add to what's already been posted: I did note the "fratchin' wi' t' gaffer" verse is often left out...possibly because unless you're from the north you won't know what "fratching" means, and unless you're from a mill background you won't understand what a string is. I'll ask her if she can remember some verses next time I see her. She's 94 and "not all there" anymore but she's more likely to remember things from her youth than from last week, so there's a chance I'll get some of it out of her. Padgett: The mill girls around Cleckheaton, Bailiff Bridge and Brighouse were also known as "Poverty Knockers". I was born and brought up in Scholes, just outside Cleckheaton and my paternal side lived there for a long time: A report sent to Thomas Cromwell (Henry VIII's minister) by Sir Marmaduke Constable in 1533 lists my ancestor "Thomas Naylor of Scholes" as one of the (many) local cloth-makers found guilty of "flocking" their cloth (using waste or recycled yarn in the weft). So I'm descended from a fraudster! |
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09 Apr 10 - 02:49 AM (#2882607) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Dave Hanson I've known this song since I first started going to folk clubs in the late 1960s and Iv'e never heard a better version than Pete Coe's Dave H |
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16 Jul 10 - 05:17 AM (#2946030) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: pavane The term 'Poverty knockers" apprears in a very old broadsheet - was it a common term in the ara? Jone o' Greenfield's lamentation |
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26 Jul 10 - 07:22 PM (#2952807) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Jim Dixon From The Works of Peter Pindar, Esq., Vol 5 by Peter Pindar (London: J. Walker, 1801), page 412: WYATT TO POINS, IN PRAISE OF LIBERTY. To crawle in courtes is bondage harde! For who y chooseth chaines I wot? Yet some, for pleasures of rewarde, Wi flatter—and blow colde and hot. But Liberty will I emplore, Though Poverty knock at my doore. What be our wants?—some thinges, not all. Contentment lyeth not in heaps; Who hath a littel field, though small, It grete is, if enough he reaps. Then Liberty will I emplore, Though Poverty knock at my doore. [I found many other instances of the expression "poverty is knocking at the door," etc.] * From Hiram Greg by J. Crowther Hirst (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1881), page 77: Among them were large numbers of handloom weavers, who, with a sad, sardonic humour, described the noise made by their looms as "poverty knock, poverty knock".... * From Notes and Queries, Series 7, Vol. 4 (London: John C. Francis, 1887), page 328: "Poverty Knocker."—In Oldham a weaver is sometimes called a "poverty knocker." I am informed that the sound made by the picking-sticks, which send the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other, is construed by weavers into "poverty knock"; hence the phrase. Can any of your Lancashire readers inform me whether the above is correct? J. Butterworth. * From ibid, page 396: "POVERTY KNOCKER" (7th S. iv. 328).—This phrase is well known in the West Riding of Yorkshire, but is not in such general use now as it was forty years since, when hand-loom weaving was still common in the outlying districts around Leeds. The phrase can scarcely be an onomatopoeia, as the simple click of the picking-stick of the hand-loom can only by a most vivid stretch of the imagination form the words "poverty-knock." Here the words were used contemptuously of a hand-loom weaver, whose earnings were much less than those of a power-loom weaver. Most probably the words have a reference to the timid single knock, such as is made by a poor beggar, as distinguished from the more fashionable rat-ta-tat made by a person who "knows manners." I well remember many years since hearing an old hand-loom weaver (who dwelt on a wild moorland road leading into the Slaithwaite valley) say that he could almost tell a poor person from a well-to-do one by the kind of knock he gave at his cottage door when asking the way across the moor on a dark night. Alf. Gardiner. (Mr. Herbert Hardy writes to similar effect.) * From The Ragged Edge: A Tale of Ward Life & Politics by John Thomas McIntyre (New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1902), page 125: "It's Nelly Fogarty," said someone. "She don't look like a poverty knocker when she's dressed up, eh?" |
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27 Jul 10 - 01:58 AM (#2952960) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: pavane Jone (John) o'Greenfield, containing the phrase, as said, seems to be from early Victorian times, perhaps before 1850. |
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27 Jul 10 - 02:15 AM (#2952961) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST alf gardiner is, i think, wrong in attributing the phrase to door knocking. The old looms that my mum sstarted on in 1930 at popplewell mill were victorian. They were still in use when the mill closed in the 60s and having heard them myself know that pk is a good description of how they sounded. |
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27 Jul 10 - 03:47 AM (#2952986) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Poverty knockers was the term used in West Yorkshire for women minding the looms ~ simply Probably the cacophony of noise in weaving mills is best typified by two knocks Tom Daniel insisted that "tap tap" be inserted Tom's lyrics (in A.L.Lloyds Folksongs In England) and on www.yorkshirefolksong.net was in my view a compilation of verses some from the poverty knockers and some from Tom (made up) I do know Mrs Fawthrop from Pudsey had had some involvement Correct version is nearer to Mick Haywood Arrange as needed, you cant break it! Ray |
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27 Jul 10 - 04:02 AM (#2952988) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Rob Naylor Sorry, "Guest" above was me from my mobile phone. |
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27 Jul 10 - 04:15 AM (#2952995) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Rob Naylor As I said in March above, and in my phone post earlier today, the old dobbie looms definitely had a "clickety clack" sound to them which can easily be rendered by the phrase "poverty knock". The old Popplewell Mill at Scholes, Cleckheaton, where my mum and all my aunties worked on the looms from the late 1920s onwards (mum started at 14 in 1930 and was the middle one of 8) used the same looms when it closed in the 60s as it had opened with in Victorian times, and I heard them many times on visits, as my Great Aunt Edith had married into the Priestley family who owned the mill and eventually inherited it when her husband died. Mum said the shop floor when it closed looked exactly as it had when she'd started there! r.padgett: not sure there is a "correct" version. Tom Daniel almost certainly made up (or re-created) some verses, but there were some verses my mum wouldn't ever sing to me as they were "too mucky". I said back in March/ April on this thread that I'd try and get as many as possible from her, but she's deteriorated rapidly over the last 3 months and now spends virtually all her time in bed, sleeping. She's not very coherent when she's awake, so no luck I'm afraid. And she's the very last one of her generation, AFAIK from the whole village, not just our family. |
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27 Jul 10 - 04:16 AM (#2952996) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray Bellamy's setting of Kipling's The Way Through the Woods uses a tune very similar to Poverty Knock although he only realised this after he'd wrote it... |
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27 Jul 10 - 08:02 AM (#2953080) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Mick Haywood who I recorded abd have known donkeys years got Poverty Knock straight from Tommy Daniel, he has extensive notes and photos Bert Lloyds book may still be available in your library, I have a copy some where from late 1960s I dare say that the women had some mucky verses too See yorkshirefolksong.net Go talk to Mick Haywood please!! or even Wendy Price ta ray |
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27 Jul 10 - 08:08 AM (#2953085) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: MGM·Lion Thread drift, but not too far, re Peter Bellamy's tunes as instanced in Suibhne's post: I once pointed out to him that Susannah's song, "I once lived in service to a lady so fine" in "The Transports", was based closely on "The Fair Maid On The Shore" ~~ a song he insisted he had never heard. But when he asked me to sing him the tune, he agreed he must have heard & forgotten it at some stage and it must have resurfaced as he composed his "lived in service" tune. ~Michael~ |
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27 Sep 12 - 03:25 AM (#3410776) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett skinny ~ means was slim build guttle ~ corruption of guggle or guzzle, which is to drink (beer)! dictionary written by Ray Padgett of course! Ray |
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27 Sep 12 - 03:33 AM (#3410778) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Keith A of Hertford I do not agree. It does not fit the context. It is clearly skinny as in skinflint, a mean and ungenerous person. Guttle has been established to mean eat in this context. |
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27 Sep 12 - 06:52 AM (#3410821) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: MikeL2 hi Keith <" It is clearly skinny as in skinflint, a mean and ungenerous person."> I think you are wrong. I think it is a euphemism for Lizzie having been " put up the duff". In other words she is pregnant. " She used to be skinny nah look at her pinny , I think it's high time she got wed. Cheers MikeL2 |
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27 Sep 12 - 06:56 AM (#3410823) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Keith A of Hertford Yes. I was thinking of "Gaffer's too skinny to pay" |
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27 Sep 12 - 10:16 AM (#3410879) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Dave Hanson Skinny = thin, " She used to be skinny, now look at her pinny " Skinny = mean, as in ' Gaffer's too skinny to pay ' Dave H |
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27 Sep 12 - 10:18 AM (#3410880) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Dave Hanson I should have added, " now look at her pinny " ie. it won't fasten due to Lizzie putting on weight due to being pregnant. Dave H |
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27 Sep 12 - 11:26 AM (#3410908) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,Desi C I think I first heard it on a 1964 album titled 'introducing the Ian Cambell Folk Group' described as a song from the cotton Mill industry' I believe the 'poverty knock' in question refers to the rent man come calling for his rent |
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27 Sep 12 - 01:08 PM (#3410963) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Yes sorry skinny is used in two ways of course! now guttle? Poverty Knock interesting re rent man, as the noise of the loom has been questioned! |
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27 Sep 12 - 02:21 PM (#3410994) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: MikeL2 hi Keith Sorry ah thowt you were referring to Lizzie's pinny not t'Gaffer.....all cleared oop nah ?? Cheers MikeL2 |
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27 Sep 12 - 03:19 PM (#3411017) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Dave Hanson Guttle is local dialect for eating quickly. Dave H |
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28 Sep 12 - 07:17 AM (#3411299) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Dave which reference did you see for "eating quickly! please? I hav in Hudleston's Yorkshire Glossary ~ Gutlin as [horse] always eating at work, closest to your interpretation Ray |
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28 Sep 12 - 08:32 AM (#3411333) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Dave Hanson I first heard it at the Bradshaw Folk Club 40 odd years ago sung by the then organiser Denis Sabey, he said it meant rushing your food down while still working. Dave H |
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28 Sep 12 - 09:15 AM (#3411351) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Mick Pearce (MCP) OED: guttle v. 1654 [fr GUT sb. after GUZZLE v.] 1. intr. To eat voraciously; to gormandize. 2. trans. To devour or swallow greedily 1685. Hence Guttler, a glutton; a gormandizer. Mick |
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28 Sep 12 - 07:55 PM (#3411548) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,Ebor_Fiddler Does anybody except me remember Tommy standing on a chair in The Star (in Haggersgate, Whitby) bawling it out, (as well as "Eighteen Pence On The Bed" to the same tune) while we all joined in the chorus, during the then EFDSS Whitby Folk Festival? |
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29 Sep 12 - 02:52 AM (#3411614) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Thanks Mick, will go with your definition! Ebor "Eighteen pence on the bed" do you have the words to this please? Do you mean that eighteen pence is the samne tune as Poverty Knocks? Dunt remember Tommy in the Star, but it was a favourite early pub, next to Seamens Mission virtually Ray |
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29 Sep 12 - 12:55 PM (#3411778) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,Ebor_Fiddler I only remember the chorus, and that in my innocence, #I had to have the phrase "Knocking shop" explained to me. The tune is Poverty Knock. "Eighteenpence on the bed, Pleasure for single or wed. There's none so many as pretty young Jenny For eighteenpence on the bed." Pure and uncorrupted, twelve to the shilling pence of course. Sorry I can't be of more help. Did Tommy not do some self-publishing or something? Has my brain totally slipped its cogs? |
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30 Sep 12 - 10:43 AM (#3412128) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Steve Gardham We've got copies of Tommy's little booklet but it only contains the usual 5 songs and very little in the way of provenance. |
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30 Sep 12 - 02:22 PM (#3412209) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Does EFDDS have any songs Steve? I had that that copy of Long Tom also, need atune What about the Cock and The Ass? was that Tommy's (dunt google it anyone! lol) Ray |
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30 Sep 12 - 03:22 PM (#3412231) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Steve Gardham The Cock and the Ass sounds familiar. Is it the same as The Old Woman and her Ass? Don't know if EFDSS have any of Tommy's stuff but I'll be there next week and I could ask. I presume we need that extra verse of PK for the YG website. Do you want me to add it in? If so I'll need to include your proper name Ebor Fiddler. If you don't want folk to know you can pm me. |
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01 Oct 12 - 04:31 AM (#3412437) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Yes I sing the Cock and The Ass, and Mike Harding had a similar song, I don't know about his provenance, but assumed that he had infact embroided the original TD song (dunt know really) There was an old woman a likely old lass who wandered round batley with a cart and a ass, every day her living to mek, this old woman mucky washing did tek with me fal de rol lol, fal di rol lol, fol di rol fol de rol fol de rol day There was an old man whose knees they did knock, altho a small man he'd a large Red Rhode Island cock etc~~~~~~ lol Ray Yes please re EFDSS ta! |
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02 Oct 12 - 04:30 AM (#3412910) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Rob Naylor r.padgett: Poverty Knock interesting re rent man, as the noise of the loom has been questioned! Never heard anything about the rent man, and ALL my female relatives of my mother's generation, both sides of the family, were "Poverty Knockers", some for a short time, most for all of their working lives. As I said above a couple of years ago, the old-model Yorkshire *woollen* mill looms (as opposed to Lancastrian cotton looms)definitely made a sound that could be rendered as "poverty knock". I've heard them! My relatives always said that that's why they were called Poverty Knockers. And the clincher is that Yorkshire people, particularly in the West Riding, however hard they struggled, would never admit to being in "poverty"...it's one thing to refer in humour to the sound a loom makes, another entirely to personalise the poverty to the knock of a rent man. My eldest aunt was denied the chance of a grammar school education, even though she passed the exams, because my grandparents would have had to get financial help to be able to buy the uniform. Such help *was* available, but there was NO WAY they'd ever consider asking for "charity". If they couldn't pay their way they went without. And that went for the whole village. So my auntie Nora went into t' mill rather than doing what she's always dreamed of and becoming a teacher. |
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02 Oct 12 - 04:48 AM (#3412917) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Sugwash I learnt the Cock and the Ass from Mick Haywood, I believe Mike Harding got it from the same source. I've always thought it was Irish in origin, but when I sang it in a pub in Culfin it was met with total stunned silence that only needed some tumble weed to complete the scene. Andy Sugden |
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02 Oct 12 - 04:56 AM (#3412919) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: r.padgett Thanks Rob and Andy for clarification and confirmation re "Knocks" and cock and ass song Ray |
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05 Jan 17 - 06:39 AM (#3830548) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,kathy I have had doubts cast on the validity of the verse where the yarn is dipped in the "tarn". Is it part of the original song, or a verse that was added later? |
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05 Jan 17 - 09:17 AM (#3830571) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,padgett Might never know about that Kathy ~ probably made up by the mill girls or even Tommy Ray |
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05 Jan 17 - 11:55 AM (#3830599) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: leeneia I had to laugh at this in the second post. "the book Victoria's Inferno." It's a clear example of a common cliche - put in a woman and make it her fault. Queen Victoria didn't have any mills. Mills were owned, operated and supervised by men. Victoria and her husband, Albert, felt more concern for the poor of the nation than did the men who were on the scene, exploiting them. |
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05 Jan 17 - 07:15 PM (#3830652) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Thomas Stern Chumbawamba on YOUTUBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7syQl-2l1Y mainly Norfolk: https://mainlynorfolk.info/folk/songs/povertyknock.html Thomas. |
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06 Jan 17 - 05:01 AM (#3830689) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,padgett I recorded Poverty knocks from Mick Haywood in 2006 for the yorkshire garland song db ~ sung by Mick Haywood who was a good friend of Tom Daniel~ I note that the notes by Steve Gardham show this as traditional ~ relevant comments mainly above The mainly norfolk is a good supplement for the provenance ~ Pete Coe's instrumental accompaniment is really a lament ~ surely the mill girls would have hit this song much harder, more of a protest and the traditional knock knock would be and should be loud as Tommy himself would have done! ~ Pete has lost the regional dialect ~ which obviously grates with me (West Yorkshire) check yorkshire folk song/Yorkshire Garland ~ note Mick Haywood and Wendy Price still alive in Whitby, first hand authorities on Tom Daniel Ray |
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15 May 17 - 08:45 PM (#3855332) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Bev and Jerry We are presenting a workshop at the San Francisco Free Folk Festival on June 10. We have done this workshop many times but it has been a while so we were refreshing what's left of our brains on the subject of the textile industry in England where all this started. We came across a passage in a pamphlet entitled, "Looms and Weaving" by Anna Benson and Neil Warburton, published in 1986 which says, "The most unpopular aspect of woollen handloom weaving was wetting weft cops to facilitate close packing of the weft threads. Cops of yarn were immersed in cold water and the weaver sucked water through them with a wooden tube. " This may explain the mysterious verse in "Poverty Knock" that says: We've got to wet our own yarn, By dippin' it into the tarn It's wet an' soggy and makes us feel groggy, and there's mice in that dirty old barn. A cop, or pirn, was a long, narrow bobbin which held the weft thread. It fit inside the shuttle which carried it across the warp threads, the action being called a "pick". After each pick, the last weft thread was packed, or "beaten up", against the previous weft threads by a comb-like device. Apparently, when wool (or at least certain kinds of wool) was being used, proper packing could only be achieved when the yarn or thread was wet. Since the yarn was already wound onto the cop, the whole thing had to be dipped into the "tarn" which we infer was some kind of vessel that held the water. Then, in order to wet the yarn all the way through, a wooden tube was attached to the center hole of the cop while blocking up the other end somehow. Then, when one sucked on the tube, a partial vacuum was created inside the cop which drew in the water all the way to the center of the winding. Continuous sucking on the tube could easily have made one dizzy or, as the song says, groggy. Bev and Jerry |
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15 May 17 - 08:51 PM (#3855333) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Bev and Jerry A little more: We have a pirn or cop in our possession and we just looked at it. It is closed at one end. The other end is open so it can slide down over a rod attached to the shuttle. Bev and Jerry |
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16 May 17 - 04:04 AM (#3855366) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,padgett Interesting as I always that "tarn" was a body of water like a lake or mill type reservoir ~ but this certainly puts a different slant on the verse Ray |
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16 May 17 - 04:22 AM (#3855368) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: Senoufou (Totally irrelevant) My Irish mother used to call hiccups 'Hunger Knock'. |
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16 May 17 - 04:32 AM (#3855370) Subject: RE: Origins: Poverty Knock From: GUEST,padgett "cop A yarn package spun on a mule or ring spindle. A paper, cardboard, wooden, plastic or metal tube is used as the core of the package." from weaving terminology Not an expert on weaving btw!! Ray |
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