Tune Req: Children of the Train (Mike Starkey)

Subject: Tune Req: Children of the Train (Mike Starkey)
From: rosma
Date: 05 May 26 - 07:45 AM

I recently announced on Mudcat the passing of Mike Starkey. As well as being a singer of traditional songs and shanties (and more besides) he wrote some excellent songs. He tended to keep his songs quite well guarded.

One song in particular he wrote with his mother in 1971. Mike grew up in Charfield, Gloucestershire and the song was about the legend which grew up around a railway disaster in the village in 1928.

The song is called "Children of the Train", and there is a YouTube video of it, which is helpful because it has allowed me to harvest the lyrics, but the tune is definitely not the original - on my prompting, Mike even left a comment to that effect.

I may well recognise the original tune if I heard it, but my musical memory does not allow me to recall it sufficiently well to sing it. Does anyone remember the original tune? If not then I suppose we will eventually concoct something appropriate to perpetuate the song.

Here are the words transcribed from the video...

Children of the Train
(Mike Starkey - 1971)

Many years ago
A great disaster came
In a little place called Charfield
Caused by a rumbling train

Victims there were many
Identified with a name
But for two small tots who lost their lives
identity never came

Ever since that awful winter's night
A lady dressed in black
Visits the grave but once a year
Of those killed in the track

Some say she knew the children
But not a clue she gave
Her secret has now died with her
And the children in the grave

We'll never know the truth of it
The mystery remains
Of who those little children were
Or from where that woman came

The rumours they still carry on
But the story's still the same
Will anybody ever know
The truth about the train

The old church is now falling down
The churchyard's overgrown
But the monument to those who died
Remains with two unknown

Thanks, Simon