BS wrote (on 07 Apr 01 - 11:07 AM):

"From time to time I've posted to the Forum about a Folk Group from Darlington in Durham. I believe the group name was FOURUM. They sang a song called CORPSE WAY which is in SWALEDALE I believe.

From Keld we'll walk to Grinton Churchyard two days journey and a night with John Blade's body on our shoulders wrapped in linen clean and white (REFRAIN) Clean and white, clean and white, wrapped in linen clean and white.....

I've yet to get lucky and find anyone who has ever heard of the group which seems a pity as their music was superb."

FC: They were really great....about a hundred years ago when I was at uni, one lad sang at an annual dinner 'He's just an old time tramp' and later gave us a taped recording of the group Forum (apparently recorded in a pub). 80's tecnology is failing us and a midi hifi system recently bit the dust - in our house we have just made a huge technological leap to an ipod and docking system for a micro hifi - you can't get a casette player any more (well maybe one). The songs Forum sang were really interesting and, likewise, I've only heard a few elsewhere. If anyone has any recollection can we save them from being lost altogether? Here are a few I remember from the tape (now unplayable, I think):

The Broadside Man
Willie's gone to Melvile Castle
The rout has just come for the blues
Askrigg Fair (Oh, men beware of Askrigg fair, take care of your money when you go there, you may end up dead and poor, buried in the peat on Askrigg moor....)
John Blade's body (corpse way)
Name: William Hill (a song about the 1851? census)
The Oldgang mine ('I've worked at the Oldgang mine for nigh on forty years, I've had my share of friendship, and I had my share of tears, but now up to the Oldgang I'll never walk no more, for the mine it is aclosing, for the price of Spanish ore..and it's farewell to the Oldgang, no more we'll mine for lead, we're heading of to Lancashire, to the cotton mills instead')
The Hartlepool monkey
Isabella......made her escape, avoiding the attentions of Henry the Eighth
The (whaling ship) Ballena
The Swaledale song: 'Driving on to Richmond, with it's castle perched on high, where knights in shining armour once rode in days gone by.....past Reeth's once busy green, where the men of the Dales, they made their sales, and highwaymen were seen..'

Is anyone still singing these? F