I also feel that the Alastair Cameron version was as near original as one can get. He was singing this song long before Swan Arcade recorded it and he visited a few other folk clubs up and down although he was more or less resident at the Bradshaw Tavern club in the sixties and seventies. He once wrote the words out for me when I went to hear a bloke called Dave sing it with him (Dave at a deep booming voice and always liked to sing his 'broken token' songs.)and Alastair wrote it with Catherine Slack, Shipley Glen, and King Cross Fusiliers but used slaughtered as opposed to slattered and this actually fits best as it doesn't repeat the vowel sound of the previous 2 verbs or the one following - slished, slashed, slaughtered, slew! He also wrote " 'ar generals " but told me that he sang "us" because we all knew that us meant our rather than we, so he changed it in the written version to preserve the meaning.

I have been hunting for a copy of the Swan Arcade record for the last 23 years without success, so if anyone has a recording it may be unique!

stanleysutcliffe@msn.com

Stan The Man (The Tyke With The Hat -->   (-:þ    )