Pseudonymous wrote:-
Relating to material on Pardon: I have found a couple of references to magazine articles which I cannot locate. One is by Peter Bellamy (published in Folk Review, August 1974, pp.10-15) and the other by Karl Dallas (published in Folk News, August 1977, pp.14-15). I have searched Jstor in vain.
Glad to be able to help because I have both. I have text scanned the article that you refer to in Folk Review I also wrote for that magazine in those days and have all the copies.
Pages 10 and 11 have the transcripted interview. Most of page 10 is taken up by an excellent line drawing of Walter Pardon by Dave Carless.

WALTER PARDON, a fifty-nine year old carpenter living in a small North Norfolk village, has recently emerged as the most important English source-singer since Harry Cox. Of the forty-odd songs he has so far transmitted, the majority are unique variants and many are previously uncollected in any form. His singing is that of a remarkably accomplished and original stylist, and will be put on record by Bill Leader later this year. He recently talked to PETER BELLAMY about his songs and the family and village from which they sprang.
I was the only one of the family who went in for carpentry, all the rest were farm hands - on the farm all day, and when they weren't, they were talking about it. That's why they used to like those songs like 'The pretty ploughboy' and 'All jolly fellows that follow the plough' — they was in great demand. These songs were sung at Christmas by the whole family; I never sang them in pubs myself. There was a lot of pub singing around here in the past, but not so much in my time. My uncle Billy used to sing — this all came from my Mother's side of the family, you see. My grandfather was Tom Gee. That photograph, that's of my uncle Billy Gee. He was an outstanding fellow. He was born here in this house. 1 learned nearly all my songs off him; he was born in 1863. Most of the songs he got fr.om my grandfather. My uncle Tom, at Bacton, he knew a lot, but they were different from what Billy's were. Most of them come from the one man: he knew a hundred, my grandfather did, but in them days there was no collecting whatsoever, no tape-recorders or anything like that. When he died, he took a lot with him; my uncle sang a lot to me, but he never learned them all. My other uncle, at Bacton, he sang different ones. He used to come at Christmas time, when we had the old family party. There'd be nearly twenty in here; (this room was bigger then), there was so many here, we used to have the tea in two goes. My mother's sister, Ruth, she used to be a fine singer, but my Mother's brothers' and sisters' children, they never learned any of the songs; 1 was the only one who knew any. The last one. But I only sang 'em for myself and for the family, never in pubs. They used to be ridiculed here. They used to say: "Why don't you learn some new songs? We don't want to hear them old things!" They were termed antiquated. That is so! Now. Harry Cox, he used to sing up the Catfield Crown, I believe, but I never did meet him. I heard him on the sound radio, and I did see him on television when they gave him a badge or something. I know Sam Lamer was singing well, too, but 1 never did meet him either. They were the only two I knew about; I don't think there was a great lot in my time, not in this area. My grandfather got the songs from broadsheets, apparently: that's how they were brought round, so they always told me. He could read music, you see; that was unusual. The reason was, he was born so long ago (surprisingly enough, he was born when George IV was king, and he died in 1830). In his young time, Knapton church had a gallery; the choir sat in the gallery - there was no organ or anything like that -- they supplied the music with clarinets and string instruments. He learned to play the clarinet, so you see he could take the music off these broadsheets. As he could read music, he got the tune, whereas a lot of these poor old men around here - you never had to go very many mile 'til you hear these tunes altered all out of proportion, because they had'em just by word-of-mouth, and I think that's why his tunes were so good. The playing in the churches, that finished very early around here, about 1850 I think, when my grandfather would've been a young man in his twenties. My uncle Billy, he said he remembered when a man-o'-war sunk off Ireland, and someone composed a song about it, and two men come along here with one of those broadsheets and sung the song over to my grandfather. I don't know if he bought it, but I was told the words and music, was ruled on it, and they charged a penny. That was how they got them into the villages. I asked Uncle Billy how it was that my grandfather managed to learn a hundred, ' cause that was very seldom he went out of the village — perhaps one day in the year to Norwich, or occasionally to North Walsham,
and he said that was how they got round: by
broadsheets. None of 'em got saved in the family; there was only one old song that I ever did find. 'The transports', wrote out by hand. I never did see any of the broadsheets; they must have got destroyed somehow or other. A lot of the things that were my grandfather's have survived in this house, though - that chair, and the grandfather clock, and that old Queen Anne table....
I was born in this house, and my mother was too. 1 haven't been out of the village much myself, except during the war. when I got sent all over the country, but I was lucky - they never sent me out of England 'cause I was working my trade. I was apprenticed in the next village here - Paston. You've heard of the Paston Letters, have you? There's a very famous old barn there, too, a tithe barn, 1581.
The church in this village here, it's got the finest roof in the county, double-hammer beam, with about 140 huge angels in, with their wings outspread, all holding something in their hands - one's got a hammer and nippers, and another one is playing an old-fashioned lute, all that sort of thing. Some of them, their faces look- as if they've been tarred, and they say Cromwell's soldiers done it. That's one thing this village is noted for, and the other is that it was the headquarters of the smugglers hereabouts. There's a garden here in the old times was always dug, never cropped. That's where the contraband was put in. Apparently there was a tunnel ran under the shop, 'cause not long ago some builders was here making a soak-away, and they broke into the tunnel. No doubt they pushed some of their stuff in there, but that was a long time ago. Yes, this was the headquarters of the smuggling, that's about the only thing the parish was noted for! My uncle told me that when he was young there was old men around here who knew all about this smuggling; I reckon it must have died out about 1830. Of course they never would own that they'd done any themselves - they was still afraid, you see, even then. I think that was done on a large scale - so was poaching. My uncle Billy, what had the songs, he was a good man with a gun. His old double-barrelled twelve-bore, that's still here in the shed, and also his equipment for making his own cartridges: powder-flask, shot-flask, wad-cutters, everything what he used to use. He told me years ago they had these muzzle-loaders; he showed me how to set a snare. There was also another instrument here that he used to make bee-skeps with out of brambles. There was a lot of old things here, but my uncle sold them. There was an old wheat-dibbler, shaped like an egg on the bottom, they used to push it in the ground and then drop the wheat in. I've still got a lot of the equipment my mother used to brew beer with — big wooden funnels, and that sort of thing. I've still got the big stone jars she used to put the beer in; some of them came from a brewery at Trunch, they've got primroses on them. The brewing, that was done just before the harvest started. The beer was brewed for the harvest, and a lot of it was drank, too!
Uncle Billy worked on a farm most of the time, and then on the Mundesley golf-links, cutting greens, that sort of thing. His hands were drawn down with rheumatism so he could only move a thumb and finger on each hand. He was taken away from school, you see, and sent to work on the farm when he was seven or eight year old, and his hands used to get so wet. He reckoned that's what caused it; at one time he used to play the fiddle, but by the time I was born his hands got locked like that, and he couldn't move his fingers about on the strings. But he was a very fine singer, had a powerful tenor voice, far away in front of anyone else whatever he sung. No-one approached him. He used to do" a lot of singing in the pubs in his young-time. I don't know where he got 'Old brown's daughter' from; he most probably learned that in a pub in North Walsham called the Mitre Tavern (that's been finished with long ago) where they had a room specially for dancing and singing. There'd been men bringing violins for that.
I haven't sung these songs much over the years, just to myself, you know. That took me all winter' to put them down on that tape for you, 'cause so many of them have lain dormant, and it took me a long time to remember them. Some them are terrifically long in length, as you know! I never thought anyone'd ever want to hear them again. No-one else had bothered to learn them, only me.
This accordion, I bought it in Norwich ten year ago this Summer; sixteen pound ten. My uncle Walter, he paid ten shilling for his, and that's just about equal in value, 'cause that's what his week's wages were.
My favourite of the songs is 'The rambling blade'. I've heard other versions of it on the wireless, but I like this tune the best. I learnt that song sitting on my uncle's knee. That's the truth, that's how I used to learn 'em. He used to lift me up, and I'd sit looking up at him while he sung. He used to sing 'Caroline' a lot, and 'Bonny bunch of roses', and 'Generals all' ('Marlborough'. as you call it). 'The transports' he never did sing much — that took too long, I suppose! 'Cock-a-doodle-doo' he didn't sing at all; that came from my uncle at Bacton — that's the sort of song he used to like, and 'The cobbler' - a bit ribald, you know!
I used to play fiddle, years ago, but that was only amateur playing, all on top of the strings. Do you get a professional, he'd draw his hand right down to the bridge, but I could only play up there. I always liked the accordions the best.
There were hundreds of songs sung in here, 1 never did get to learn all of them - everything from 'The cobbler' and 'Lord Lovel' right down to 'The long long trail a-winding.' That was popular during the First World War, and a lot of others you couldn't properly call folk songs: 'The ship that never returned', 'Miner's dream of home', Tn the shade of the old apple tree' and so on. It'd all depend who used to sing, you see. They were the new songs at that time.
Some of the songs we had were very well-known, I think, like 'The dark eyed sailor', 'Jack Tar', 'The banks of the sweet Dundee', I think that's fairly common. Some of them are fairly well stretched about the country. I've heard that Bob Copper on the wireless sing different versions of the songs. My uncle Bob saag 'Jones ale was new'. That was Bob Gee's copyright, you might say. No-one'd sing that but him, and he sung that just like he talked: there was no English in it hardly! We knew what it was, but anywhere else they'd very near want an interpreter! That originated from my grandfather, so did 'The huntsman' and 'Rat-cliffe highway* they were his songs, and I think the bulk of the others were too. It's a pity the lot haven't survived; some of them I never did learn, 'cause they more or less had a copyright on them; they'd never infringe each others' copyright" to a particular song. After a song there'd be applause, and they'd shout 'Ar soide th'bork!', or 'Our side of the baulk! (or beam)' meaning appreciation for the song from the people sitting that side of the room.
We used to have a Harvest Frolic, too; that's another thing what was done. There'd be singing and dancing there; that was held in the barn that the small-holders hired. That'd be cleared completely out, all the implements'd be put outside, and Uncle Walter used to do all the accordion playing. That all finished when I was a schoolboy. I had an uncle who was a good step-dancer, and they used to do these old 'swing-dances', more-or-less Victorian style, you know. They'd be singing and dancing in there till after twelve. Lots of beer drank, same as there was in here. Christmas night; lots of noise; but there's only me here now. My father was the last one to die, and when I was left here on my own that was melancholy; that's why I had it all changed in here, to make a different atmosphere. Yes, I do miss those good old times.

WALTER PARDON'S SONGS TRANSMITTED UP TO 10.2.1974
Cupid the Ploughboy
The Rambling Blade
Let the Wind Blow High or Low
Caroline and her young Sailor
You Generals All (Brave Marlborough)
The Pretty Ploughboy
The Transports (Van Dieman's Land)
Jack Tar (J.T. Ashore)
I Wish, I Wish
The Dark-Eyed Sailor
Ratcliffe Highway (The Deserter)
Lads of High Renown (Poacher's Fate)
The Broomfield Wager
Trees They Do Grow High
A Ship to England came
The Huntsman
The female cabin-boy
Banks of the Sweet Dundee
I'll Hang my Harp on a Willow-tree
Old Brown's daughter
The old miser
The British Man of War
Jones' Ale
The Bush of Australia
The Bonny Bunch of Roses
Lord Lovel
Peggy Bawn
Mowing the Barley
Seventeen come Sunday
Jolly waggoners
Cock-a-doodle-doo
The bold fisherman
The poor Smuggler's Boy
The Raggle-Taggie Gypsies
The Green Rushes
Help One-another, Boys
The Ship That Never Returned
The Cunning Cobbler

Dave Carless has a second drawing which is reproduced at the top of each of the next four pages which are given over to transcriptions of the tune and words of four of the songs:-
pg.12 Peggy Bawn
pg.13 The British Man of War
pg.14 Old Brown's Daughter
pg.16 A Ship to England came

I will also text scan and post the Peter Bellamy article in Folk News (both Peter and I wrote for that one as well) when I have time but I will be busy in the next few days - deadlines for two articles approaching and some songs and tunes to learn and rehearse for upcoming gigs.