Gosh, I'm touched! Thank you, Dave, Guest, and all who were at the concert last Saturday. The two shanties I sang, Shallow Brown and Ilo Man, came from the work of American James Madison Carpenter, who collected 50 sea songs and ballads from South Wales sailors, including Barry men Rees Baldwin and William Fender. I recorded Rees Baldwin's daughter, Mrs Edna Robinson, and it was her son, Geoffrey Robinson, who I think was head of Newport University, who was delighted that a researcher should be taking so much interest in his grandfather and his mother. I wrote a piece called Trade Winds, which told the amazing story of Carpenter and his meeting with the South Wales men, recordings which were 'lost' for 50 years until they turned up 4,000 miles away in Booneville, Mississippi. We took the story to America where we sang in a few learned places, including Charlotte University (By the way, it's Ilo in South America, not Hilo in Hawaii - there are shades of Huckleberry Hunting in the verse.)

The third was Rolling Home To Dear Old Swansea, which I collected from Captain Frank Parker of Uplands, Swansea. There are many versions of this song, i.e. Rolling Home To Old Australia or Dear Old England, but apart from changes the words, Captain Frank's version is 4/4 and has the full chorus:

"Rolling Home, rolling home, rolling home across the sea,
Rolling home to dear old Swansea, rolling home, dear land, to thee;
Rolling Home, rolling home, rolling home across the sea,
Rolling home to dear old Swansea with old Ireland on our lee."

I think that Skipper Jack wrote the one Baggyrinkle sing, but what the hell? It's a fabulous piece of writing!