Thanks for your response, Gibb. That makes sense.

Re Lloyd, no researcher this side of the pond (except a few cranks) takes anything Lloyd presented seriously as far as authenticity is concerned (and that doesn't just apply to sea songs/chanties). You are far nearer the truth with 'I'm just gonna go for it'. His made up text for 'Heave away, me Johnny' is a prime example.

However, I must now don my performer cap once again and qualify that with: Bert was a brilliant song adapter and performer, and we sing his songs regardless over here, made up by him or not. I have sung both the chanties you quote in the past and they are still part of the Spare Hands repertoire, though I don't lead them.

While I'm on, on a different tack, I'm running a chanty workshop on Thursday night to shanghai new members for Hull Chanty Crew. This all comes under the umbrella of our charity 'Folk in Hull' which now runs my maritime concerts and Hull Folk and Maritime Festival (September 9th to 11th). I have been taken to task by our publicity officer for using the c word as opposed to the s word which is far more recognised in internet hits this side of the pond. I can see her point but, having been for some time one of your disciples, when we set up Hull Chanty Crew quite a while ago, I was following your lead. Using your book I looked very closely at all the usages of each spelling and most pre 1910 publications use the C word.

However, a couple of days ago using your biblio I tried to track down on the net (Archive) more of the earlier articles I didn't have. Greatly to my surprise the Once a Week article of 1868 and the almost identical article in Chambers 1869 both used the S word. Were they written by the same person do you know or is the Chambers a plagiarisation?