Richard Snell.

I am the writer of 'The Thresher', and am very grateful for every-one's interest. I can supply you with the text as Martin C. learnt it from me when I first wrote it as a schoolboy in the early 60's. I only found out several years later that he'd been singing it around the clubs and giving it a bit of hardly-deserved popularity. He was gracious enough to write it out for me when I met him again a few years back, because I'd forgotten it. It's far from being the best song in the world, very broadsidey and doggerel, clearly the work of an adolescent, but here it is anyway:

THE THRESHER
(Richard Snell)

As I walked out one fine summer morning
The grass waved green in the gentle breeze
I heard a fair maid softly calling
Oh curs-ed be the cruel sea

My love he was an American sailor
He served on board of a submarine
He served on board of the U.S. Thresher
The strongest ship that sailed the sea

He said to me, I love you truly
And I'll come back and I'll marry you
Oh don't you fear love for my safety
This trip is over very soon

And 'twas then he'd gone and 'twas then I waited
Waited for his quick return
But 'twas then a letter came down to me
We fear your own true love has drowned

The steel sides burst in the deepest water
And to the bottom sank slowly down
His body rots in a metal coffin
The weeds wave o'er his hollow bones

Oh I'll go find another true love
And in the end he'll marry me
But he'll have to be a true-born landsman
I'll not be wed to the cruel sea