I've just acquired a couple of old Percy French songbooks, published in London, I'm guessing to be 40+ years old, can't tell (not dated, but the original price was 5/-). Several songs are copyright 1957, so that's probably the year.

My question concerns the odd notation above the vocal staff. There's a vertical bar at each measure, that part's easy, and a squiggly line at the beginning and end of each line, I'm not too concerned with those either.

What's really strange is the marks above each note - could they be chords? This one is in the key of G.

    :s1  |s1   :m  :m   |m    :r    :r |r  :-.d    :d  |d   :-
   Oh!   Ma - ry! this Lon - don's a  won - der - ful sight,    

:t1 .l1 |l1   :s1 :s1  |s1   :l1  :t1 |r  :d  :-.d  |d   :-
   Wid the peo - ple here work - in' by  day and  by   night;    

Those 1's aren't really that - they're small vertical bars. Even though the notation may not work out quite right, I'm sure someone will recognize it and tell me what's going on.

Thanks for your help.