Oh dear

Firstly ~ please look at The Yorkshire Garland site ~ Tom Daniel was good friend of both Mick Haywood (still lives in Whitby) and the late Bill Price ~ Wendy Price also lives in Whitby

It is most certainly not meant to be a sad song ~ the women who sang the song will have made up the verse ~ the knock knock is to my mind an integral part of it ~ to mimic the sound of the loom and would in my view be performed as part of the song

Tom Daniel was a little guy ~ I suspect he will have worked as a doffer as a young chap (usually girls did this) and became exposed to the singing

He made up songs himself and in later life entertained at Old Peoples' homes on a banjo sort of instrument ~he also sold carpets on Heckmondwike market!

“I already knew the song in its ‘jolly folk club singalong’ incarnation,” he tells me. “In fact, I think it was on my GCSE music syllabus as the Example of British Folk Music. But the version which got me to reappraise it is Pete Coe’s. Pretty much any slow/sad ‘Poverty Knock’ is down to him, I’d say.

I do not decry anyone arranging songs and if that turns ppl on to folk music must be applauded

I would be interested to see the GCSE answer to Poverty Knocks btw

Ray