G'day Skarpi, Barry and Baz,

As I understand it, Ewan MacColl's Manchester Rambler song is much older than the Radio programme The Ballad of John Axon in which it appeared - written for the Manchester Ramblers walking group. The Radio Ballads went on to be a remarkably documentary successful series, integrating interviews, actuality, folksongs and composed or modified song by Ewan MacColl, Peggy Seeger (and A.L. Lloyd?).

John Axon was about an engine driver killed when he stayed with a runaway train, trying to stop it. There were subsequent Radio Ballads about Coalmining, Road Building, Gypsies, Boxing, Herring Fishing, Disturbed Teenagers and probably more. Many songs came from the tradition and some went back into the traditions of Ireland, Scotland and England. The series started ~1959 and ran through the 1960s on BBC Radio.

Off the top of my head, some other (well-known?) songs that came from the Radio Ballads include: The Shoals of Herring, (from Singing the Fishing) The Big Hewer, (From Coalmining programme) Move Along, (from The Travelling People) Sweet Thames Flow Softly (from ???) Hot Asphalt ... A celebration of the work of the road-builders, not the old music hall, cop-killing version (from Song of a Road.

I know that a number of the Irish songs used in Song of a Road were changed by Ewan MacColl from earlier songs and a lot of what he did went back to the traditional singers. This programme also had one song based on an Australian original and, since I worked on Australian big construction jobs in the 1960s, I often sing this one - 'The Fitter's Song'.

Many of these songs were in the Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger Songbook, now out of print. I believe I did see (in a recent Mudcat thread asking about all the Seeger family) some hint that Peggy Seeger is working on a new, expanded version of this and we may see it soon.

Regards,

Bob Bolton