I note from the DT that the only entry for this song is as sung by Dick Gaughan.

I first heard this song in Gosforth Folk Club in Newcastle in the late sixties, sung in a Geordie dialect. I know that the song is not of Geordie origins however.

Anyway, my point is that Dick's last verse omits an important four lines. The version, as I have it, is slightly different to Dick's but the real difference is these four lines.

At some stage in the near future I will post the Geordie Dialect version but I append here Dicks version with the last stanza amended.

RECRUITED COLLIER

O what's the matter wi' you, my lass,
And where's your dashing Jimmy?
O, the soldier boys have ta'en him up
And sent him far, far from me.
Last payday he went off to town
And them red-coated fellows
Enticed him in and made him drunk
And he's better gone to the gallows.

The very sight of his cockade
It sets us all a-crying,
And me I nearly fainted twice.
I thought that I was dying.
My father would have paid the smart
And he ran for the golden guinea,
But the sergeant swore he'd kissed the book
And now they've got young Jimmy.

When Jimmy talks about the wars,
It's worse than death to hear him.
I have to go and hide my face
Because I cannot bear him.
A brigadier or grenadier
He says they're bound to make him,
But aye he laughs and cracks his jokes
And bids me not forsake him.

As I walked ower the stubble fields--
Below it runs the seam--
I thought of Jimmy hewing there,
But it was all a dream.
He hewed the very coals we burn
And when the fire I'm lighting,
To think the coals was in his hands,
It sets my heart to beating.

For three long years he's followed me.
Now I must live without him.
There's nothing now that I can do
But weep and think about him.
So break my heart and then it's ower.
So break my heart, my dearie,
And lay me in the cold ground,
For of single life I'm weary.