The transcribed interviews with Walter Pardon that appeared in Vol. 1 No. 3 August 1977 in Folk News. The article is accompanied by two large photos of the man, another of Uncle Billy Gee. A fourth photo is captioned "Bert Lloyd and Walter at Loughborough". None of the photographers are credited: -

Two-and-a-half years separate the interviews from which this article has been edited. The first, on December 7, 1974, took place before Walter Pardon's first Leader album, "A Proper Sort", was issued, and is actually transcribed from Bill Leader's recording of an interview conducted by Karl Dallas for the Melody Maker series "Folk Giants" at the time that album was being recorded in Walter's home. The second was recorded in Putney, London, earlier this year in the home of Pat McKenzie, of the Singer's Club, the Sunday morning after Walter had appeared at the club. In the intervening period Walter's album had brought him international acclaim, a trip to Washington DC to participate in the US Bicentennial celebrations, and appearances at several clubs and folk festivals, though he still turns down more invitations to sing than he accepts. In contrast with some other traditional singers whose style has suffered after they have been taken up by the folk revival, a comparison between the' way he sings today and the early "demo" tapes which Walter recorded for Roger Dixon, who passed them on to his old pupil Peter Bellamy, shows that the impact of the folk scene upon Walter Pardon has been beneficial. Today, he sings with more confidence and authority, presumably derived from the knowledge that the present generation has more respect for the songs than his own. He no longer works as a carpenter, but refuses to consider himself a professional singer.
AT FOURTEEN I was apprenticed to a carpenter in the next village, Paston, that's what I done all my life except four year in the army. I went in in November 1942 and came out in October 1946.
There's not much to see at Towey's Barn. You ought to look in the church roof here, that's better than looking in the barn. It's got a double hammer beam. There's about 140 angels in the roof, nearly every trade on, I think: angels with hammer and nippers in their hand, boat, some playing the lute and these old-fashioned string instruments. Some have got their faces blackened, they said what Cromwell's soldiers done. It looked as if tar had been put on. It was too high up for them to damage much. They say there was a shipwreck and they took the timber and put it on the church but 1 don't hardly believe that.
I should have liked to have been about here, though, when that choir was going on, the clarinets and things in. 1 believe that died out in the early 1850s, I don't know.
Three year ago. March (1971) when 1 went to the Queen's Head at Norwich, that was the first time (he sang in public). Then the second time I went to the University, the (Norwich) Folk Festival, 1974. That's second. The third time going anywhere I went to Snape, you know where Bob Hart and Percy (Webb) sing. I didn't know him until I met him there. And Percy, never seen nor even heard of him.
I can remember about 1944. I was stationed in Surrey, we hired a radio set from Aldershot. Poor old Harry was on that, Harry Cox. He was born only 12 miles away. 1 never did see him nor Sam Larner. The only old singers I've seen is Percy Webb and Bob. Percy's dead now.
Harry was singing a song what I knew then and knew well though I never laid claim to it. He was singing "The Banks of Sweet Dundee" and that was scorned and ridiculed.
Walter got most of his songs from his uncle, Billy Gee.
He used to go to a pub in North Walsham, the Mitre Tavern, which is out of existence, though the arch is still there, to connect up the bicycle shop with the ironmonger's shop, that's still known as the Mitre Tavern arch. I think that the Mitre Tavern stood somewhere where the ironmonger's shop is. They had a singing room in there, like we have folk clubs now, isn't it? I never did know whether he learned from anyone in there or whether he got them from a grandfather. I never did ask.
He was a good singer, better than I, a lot. Oh yes. a lot better than I am. He'd got a stronger voice, pitch the songs up a lot higher too. He was the best singer there was in the family by a long way. He did sing in pubs, though I never did. I've never seen this but he said they'd sing songs and go round with a hat. collecting in it. I never did hear him sing only once in a pub meself. I never did go in the pub much with him. I don't know. I never did like pubs much, unless it's a folk club. I never did like pub bars. I never did go in much or drank much beer. I never was keen on that sort of thing. I never did sing in a pub anyhow, not in a bar, not if they asked me to, not now. I like a room when it's peace and quiet, that's what I like.
I never did sing out of the house hardly, we used to sing in here at Christmas time, that was all. Old beams used to go across the room. We called them baulks. It went right through the chimney and got covered in soot and one year it caught on fire. One Saturday night. 1 remember, they poured water down. I had it left in when they modernised the house but the bricklayer came and took it out.
So you'd have people sitting your side of the room and mine. Someone sang your side of the room, that's what they used to shout: "Ourside of the baulk", or beam. They were always called baulks. We had to appreciate the song sung that side of the room for someone to sing this (side) so, cast over. They used to shout it, it was took as a compliment. I don't know that they done it anywhere else, it used to be done in here. That was always shouted Christmas time.
I never did sing a lot of the old folk songs, not then, not with the older ones alive. That was their perk. They always sung their own songs. you see. Uncle Bob Gee would sing "Jones's Ale", that was his song, Tom Gee always sung "The Bonny Bunch of Roses", no one else would sing that or dare. They had special songs they sung. The brothers would never sing what another brother sung nor did they like anyone else to. So I had to sing what no one else wanted to.
"The Dark-Eyed Sailor", 1 was allowed to sing that, no one else wanted to and I always liked the song so that went all right with me. "When the Fields are White with Daisies", that sort of thing, "The Old Rustic Bridge by the Mill", "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree", they were more modern songs what they never bothered much about.
Well, Billy, there's a lot what he taught me that he never did sing much. There were so many repeats. "Generals All", or "Marlborough", "Rambling Blade", "Young Sailor", "Old Brown's Daughter", that was nearly always sung. Part of "The Bush of Australia" was considered obscene so that was cut out, a lot of that, never did sing all of that through, but that was then. Tom's song, he used to sing "The Cobbler" mostly, another bawdy old song, "Cock-a-Doodle-do". Another one was "I Wish They'd Do It Now" that was another one. "The Dandy Man", that's another one, "Jolly Waggoners". Tom would sing ('The Bush of Australia") through but Billy never would, so there was only a fragment going. He'd tell me the words and I used to write them down because he'd tell me it won't be whole sung through in company. He told me that used to be stopped in public houses, some of the landlords would ban that, that was a banned song. Balderdash, they called that. 1 don't suppose they'd take much notice now.
He never sung them all (through). He must've known them, he could sing them all (but) I've heard him sing fragments. It was no trouble to learn a tune 'cos the mother, the two lads, they knew the tunes as well as he did. So sometimes I'd nearly got the tune off before I knew the words, he'd supply the words. It was from him and the grandfather that the tunes were got. I never did hear him sing, not a great many, not through, not as many as he let me have anyhow.
You never did hear him sing "Van Diemen's Land" right through but it was only through him 1 knew it, though. My Aunt Alice would sing a good bit, mother's sister. She's the last one left alive. I lived with her when I had my house altered and modernised a bit. She used to tell me a lot about the songs, the tunes too. She used to enthuse about how well her grandfather used to sing "Van Diemen's Land", so did mother and the other sister. They all enthused on how well he sung that, so that was the reason why 1 liked singing it.
Old Spot, he'd say: "You can always get the tunes." My Uncle Walter, he used to play an accordeon, he could play them on his accordeon too, you see. I could learn them then, quick enough. They all knew what they were, they had heard them so much, you see, especially the father of him because he used to do a lot, any time, Christmas, night time, anywhere around he'd sing songs. He sung to the children.
Singers in folk clubs compared with his family singers:
Some are about the same, some sing well, they come in the Orchard Garden, some very good singers. I always think they've got the advantage, most of them, of accompaniment, don't you? I always think that's better to listen to. Well I think so, don't you? I think the old folk songs were meant to be unaccompanied. So the experts write about and say they are, so I don't know. 1 never expected anything of the sort (his discovery) to happen. Originally, I was giving them to my cousin's son to take to Peter's (Bellamy) history teacher. Roger Dixon. He's been taught, he's a musician, he can read music and sing, play a piano and all that sort of thing. I thought they'd just do for him to sing at Fakenham at the different concerts where he's in or whatever he do. I never expected they'd ask me to go in or make a record or do anything. That's as far as 1 thought they'd go.
Fact, 1 don't suppose I'd have recorded them, he was the one really, kept asking me for years to put them on record. He said when I was no more they'd be gone. And as he's more or less slightly related, I suppose he thought that's a pity to let the songs die and no one know anything about (them).
He found out about them when there was just Father and Mother left alive, he used to come and have his tea when he was at North Walsham Grammar School. He'd come every Friday. He'd more or less got to hear the songs through me playing them all the time on the accordeon.
Then he kept on at me. That'd be about 12 years ago when he got married. He said: "Has Walter got a tape recorder?" He wanted to bring (one) for me to sing the songs on. I refused for years to do it until I bought one myself about five years ago.
Then when I first tried it out. that sounded so horrible I wiped them all out. When I played that back that did sound dreadful, the first time I'd heard it. Yeah, it did, that's dreadful. I thought so. anyhow. I used to try anything on just to see how it did sound. When I thought it sounded passably good for him I filled the tape up. That was how Peter found out about it.
I'd seen Peter about once on the television, that was all, but I never knew if he was educated at Fakenham or anything about him you see. So I never expected them to go about like they've done, anyhow .Nor and I never expected anyone to have taken any interest in them.
I got one, I'd heard that and I can't remember where the man came from or anything that was "Mowing the Barley". He was a West Countryman, I think that was all that was known.
"The Dark Archer", the song I sang there last night up at the Singers' Club, no one there around that area knew it. That was sung around there by an old blind fiddler used to come round, Blind Harry. About 80 or 90 years ago, he'd play this violin that was more or less his song. Pat and Jim (McKenzie) came to see me and I spoke about this song. Pat got the words from Mike Yates, that was a little different version so I had to more or less shorten some of the words, alter it a bit to fit 'the tune that Blind Harry sung it to. So 'that is more or less a twisted version, two songs in one.
The most recent one I got, "Grace Darling", mother sung it. 1 never was sure of the words, I didn't, not quite enough to get it on as I want. I found a book she'd wrote it out in, so that was how I thought, "It's mother's song and I'll sing it". That was how I got that one. I don't know how old that is but I know that happened in 1838, the "Forfarshire" wrecked off the Northumbrian coast and also this girl rowed out with a rowing boat and died when she was 23. That is the most recent one that I've discovered, I think.
The better things I'd like to see, I think, my grandmother burned and that was the broadsheets and I think she did. She'd got no ear for music and I don't think she used to appreciate it, because, apart from when grandfather got a start, that was non-stop, so they told me.
It finished all Christmas parties when Mother died. The last one was 1952. My Mother died in the February, 1953, there never was any more. You see, that just left Father and I in here. Ever since, I've gone up to an aunt who lived up the road they never had any singing up there never sung up there or took the accordeon out of the house.
I still play that, have done for years here alone on a Saturday night, never missed. I sometimes sit on the stairs a play, so people can't hear me. I never bring it out. I've never considered myself good enough to bring it out.
My Uncle Walter always had one. My Aunt Alice bought me one for about sixpence with four keys which would just play a tune, a chromatic (melodeon), you see,, it would play eight notes. I learned play on that and I had one ever since; different ones, some with ten keys, some double-rowed. 1 did manage to get a few songs on a piano accordion that I bought about 40 years ago. The push-in note a the pull-out note is just the same, you've got 21 keys on a piano accordion, it's just 21 notes. On a chromatic, 21 keys you've got 42 notes, so they don't work the same.
Walter was largely self-taught.
Yes, well, I don't know if anyone can teach you, can they, to play? I suppose (Uncle Billy Gee) might have had a hand in it. I don't know. Our styles were different. I can play fairly well. I suppose but in no comparison to what I've hear Tony Hall, Chris Morley and all them or anybody else. So that's why 1 don't bring it out. I don't even compare it to what Oscar Woods can do or Percy Brown, not as good as that, so you know why I just play it for my own amusement.
I can't sing so well with accompaniment as I can alone. That has been tried because Cliffs (Godbold) youngest boy David is a good violinist, he can play "Old Brown's Daughter", that has be tried. I can never sing it so well in accompaniment. I sing it in the key of C, he can set it and he can play it. When he's playing it I'm listening to him instead of concentrating on what I'm doing myself. It never sounded too good. I might do it if I had a lot of practice but I've never been used to being accompanied. I know some sing the better with it, most of them do but that is something what I've never been used to so I can't do it so well.
I never knew the folk clubs existed, only vaguely. 1 had an idea they ran something like a ... I thought about a select band of people might get drawn round and sing these songs over like they sung in Victorian times. I never knew there was big folk clubs. I'd never seen the Melody Maker or knew anything about it or looked at it. At least, I never knew they held a festival at Norwich until I went. It was never publicised. You never saw it in the local paper, not the daily anyhow. So what 1 knew about folk clubs and that sort of thing was nil nearly. Peter, you see, he was the one. I think that'd be better if they did advertise folk festivals more, in the paper, the local one, don't you?
My generation ridiculed songs. There was no young men (singing them) 40 years ago. When I was 20 you went to a man of 60 to hear the songs. That.. . is . .. a ... fact! You can see that in this book what Bill (Leader) brought me. They got out of the way to sing songs. Bob (Copper) and his cousin Ron. That's correct and that is the same here. That is the reason they lay dormant. They'd have laid so for ever more if it weren't for Roger or the folk revival. That's correct enough, yeah, yes.

The previous article from Folk Review that I text-scanned was on fine gloss paper and this made it an easy task. This one from Folk News was on decades-old decaying newsprint which made it a more difficult task. I have tried to correct this but as I have said, this comes at a very busy time for me and I cannot give it that much time. I apologise for any text mis-readings that I have missed