G'day yet again Frances,

I'm back from the meeting to which I was committed ...

There were a few things that I ought to have mentioned:

As I mentioned, in my 10 May 05 - 11:37 PM post, above, the event that inspired the song actually occurred in the Female Factory (a residential prison/workhouse for female convicts), Hobart Tasmania ... but Ted has set the song (e.g: verse 3 "For I'm here in the Factory - out at Parramatta") in the better-known Female Factory that was situated at Parramatta, west of Sydney. It doesn't affect the power of the song.

The second point probably only bothers me ... I keep thinking that Margret's "Cockney" doesn't sound like a Cockney of (say) 1810 would have ... on the basis of (slightly later) phonetic renditions of street Londoners' speech in Dickens and Mayhew ... but then - if it did sound authentic ... nobody would recognise it as such! Oh well ...

Frances: Were you also after the tune? This will take longer ... neither words nor tune are in any books I can turn up. I would like to have the song fully transcribed - to persuade some of my Workshops' singers to add to their repertoire - but it will take a while ...

Oh - and I should have headed the last posting "Lyr Add", to help the Mudcat/DT harvesters!

Regards,

Bob