Dan Milner gave me a note about this on the 6th of May but I hadn't really put my mind to it until this morning. The tune that almost immediately came to my mind was "The Anti-Gallican Privateer", the tune of which can be found in Bruce and Stokoe's "Northumbrian Minstrelsy" (I think that's where I got it from - I put that song on the first recording I did for Topic in 1962, a 45rpm called "Northumbrian Garland"). The last line would be used as a chorus, thus:

O, hev ye hord the wundrous news T' heor me sang ye'll not refuse Since the new Steam Packet's ta'en a cruise An' bore away for Sunderland Sunderland Sunderland An' bore away for Sunderland

Sung this way is typical of Tyneside satirical songs - giving the audience a chance to join in.