G'day Malcolm,

In the tape I worked with - recorded c. 1975 from a folk music program ... and obviously recorded at a live concert some time before ... Mike Harding describes the song as "collected by Paul Grayney (~sp.?), in Lancashire". He sings quite a few extra words and a few different ones, compared with the attributed text in his 1980 book.

This suggests, to me at least, that he subsequently found a published (or collected?) text and some details of its history. I see that his book credits Richard Pomfret with the words and Stan Ellison as having 'put (the tune) to it'. What I would love to know is a few dates ... as well as how Mrs Bellasis fits in the story ... and when?

(I'll assume that the "Sam Laycock" attribution at the head of one of the earlier threads was just a hopeful guess!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton