If anybody wants a copy of the Ben Bright booklet let me have an e-mail address and I'll send them a digitised version

I've been dredging (excuse the joke) the pages of 'The New City Songster'; magazines Peggy Seeger edited for The Singers club
They were made up of songs sent to her by songwriters from as far afield as Boggert Hole Clough and and Brisbane and ran into 20 ediitions
I found a number of modern sea songs
This one got an "hounourable mention" in a copetition one held by the club by a supporter who didn't know what to do with a first edition of the first set of Child he had found and didn't want
The winner was John Pole's 'Punch and Judy'

There's a tune available if anybody wants it
I'll post more when I get time
Jim Carroll

The Western Trader: Words and music Jimmy Brown

We’re standing in the engine room aboard the Western Trader
And we’re sailing home from Glasgow on a passage from Jamaica
The turbines are as smooth as silk and the boiler pressure’s steady
We’ll be steaming up the River Clyde in the morning bright and early

Chorus
And it’s ring down telegraph,
finish with engines Jock,
Shut down your boilers lads,
we’re tied up in the docks,

Now, it hasn't been the best of trips, like some we've known before
Two firemen were scalded after we left Baltimore;
And the fight we had in Kingston, when McKenzie lost his teeth —
Well, his folks won't recognise him when he gets home to Leith!

CHORUS
And it's full ahead engines,
full ahead engines,
Sail like we had mail!
And we'll make up the two days lost
we spent in Kingston Jail.

An engineer on watch learns to live with noise and heat,
Like the throbbing of the engines, the propeller's mighty beat,
With your hand on the controls, well, you think of many things.
But you know that you're not dreaming when that telegraphs it rings:

Chorus
And it's full astern engines, full astern engines,
Throw the throttle wide;
There's fishing boats and fog out there,
Pray God we don't collide.

And now we see the tenements and rows of shipyard cranes;
We'll be paying off at Yorkhill and we'll see our wives and weans;
But will we go to sea again, or go back to the yards?
Well, whatever way we choose, my lads, we know it will be hard.

CHORUS
And it's stand by engines, stand by engines,
We're casting off at ten!
And we're sailing off to God knows where,
and we'll come back Christ knows when.