Who wrote The Candlelight Fisherman, in the DT here? The song is about a fisherman looking for excuses not to get out of bed. If the wind is strong enough to blow his candle out, then it's too rough to go to sea. If it's not strong enough to blow his candle out, it won't fill his sails and he can't go to sea.

Major Phil Hammond of Morston, Norfolk, was recorded by Peter Kennedy singing The Candlelight Fisherman for the BBC's folk song collection in 1952. That recording appears on Kennedy's compilation LP series of traditional singers, Folk Songs of Britain; this one on volume 3, Jack Of All Trades. The only other recording of this by a traditional singer known to me is Bob Roberts, recorded in 1977 in Ryde, Isle of Wight, by Tony Engle, for Bob's Topic LP, Songs of the Sailing Barges. The BBC school publication, Singing Together, states that "the words and the music were partly composed by Major Hammond", though this is always credited to 'traditional'.

Can anyone verify whether Phil Hammond claimed to have written it? If he says he did, and there are no previous collected versions, then I'd say we should believe him, but did he make such a claim (in which case the attribution 'traditional' is wrong)?

Any information would be greatly appreciated.