Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling

Subject: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: GUEST,Chris Lamb
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 11:53 AM

Does anyone know of any surviving recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling? There are plentiful recordings of Bert's singing, of course, but he was also a fine storyteller, and I'd like to track down any recordings of these stories that might exist.

By the way, it's Bert Lloyd's centenary next year, and I believe some events should be organised to mark his work as one of the most influential figures in the folk revival.

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 10 Dec 07 - 05:31 PM

Don't know about any recordings, but contact Dave Arthur who is finally completing his biography of Bert Lloyd which will be published in 2008 by the English Folk Dance & Song Society. There are some discuissions about an event as well.
Derek Schofield

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 04:11 AM

Chris,
Thanks for reminding me of Bert as a storyteller; I heard him telling stories on numerous occasions at The Singers Club.
He tended towards Australian 'Tall Tales' like those of The Spiwah, (never sure of the spelling) a place in the Outback where everything was ten times the size of anywhere else. One such was how he once travelled on a mule for three days though a tunnel which turned out to be a hollow tree-trunk.
The only traditional tale I can remember was called 'fill bowl, fill', about an itinerant labourer who seduced all the occupants of a settlement with the aid of a magic whistle. I think there is an American version of this in Richard Chase's 'Jack Tales'.
Then there was the one of a farmer who suspected one of his employees of seducing his daughter, so he hung a carrot over a bowl of milk under her bed; when he looked the following morning, the milk had turned into whipped cream.
I suspect that the stories he told were of his own creation, but they were a pleasure to listen to.
It was common at The Singers Club for the residents to tell stories. MacColl was a great storyteller, his favourites, like Bert's, being Tall Tales, usually about the adventures of the Scots adventurer Chairlie Plenderleith, though he did occasionally tell stories he had recorded from The Stewarts, and a couple he got in the forties when he was collecting for the BBC (The Wellington Boot).
I may have some of of these among the evenings we recorded at The Singers Club.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: Vic Smith
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 09:16 AM

Somewhere in our house (!) we have a pretty poor quality casette recording of a club booking the Bert did for us in Lewes - not listened to it (or seen it) for decades - but I do remember that it includes a story which starts off about his own experiences on an Antarctic whaler before becoming a tall story about the "kush maker".

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 09:56 AM

One of Bert's best tales was 'The Sleeve Job'. It was about a sailor who hears about a young lady who can perform a legendary erotic act. He goes off in search this person, hoping that he can persuade her to perform 'The Sleeve Job' on him. He very nearly achieves his ambition ...

I do know of a recording of this tale, but it doesn't belong to me, and I'm not sure that it could easily be made available.

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: EBarnacle
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 10:47 AM

The kush maker is a variant on a Yiddish tale called the "The Kushmacher."

The variant I have heard most frequently begins at a draft screening where the clerk asks the profession of the prospective draftee and ends up involving the entire Atlantic Fleet and part of the Air Force.

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 11:30 AM

Interesting. I heard Bert tell the story about the kush maker in February 1973, at a series of lectures which had been organised by the Bluecoat Chambers Department of extra-mural studies in Liverpool.

According to Bert, when he shipped aboard a whaler at Bromborough, which he incorrectly located as being in Liverpool(it was actually in Chershire), the crew was joined by a Dane called Klempson. At the shipping office, he was asked what his trade was. He said "Why, I'm the kush maker, Sir".

The clerk, rather than show his ignorance, signed him up.

Once aboard, various of the ships officers, all the way up to the captain, asked his trade. Each in turn was told "Why, I'm the kush maker, Sir". Each preferred not to show his ignorance.

Klempson was given a hold all to himself (and bear in mind, Bert had taken about ten minutes to get this far). From there he requisitioned all manner of materials, including wood, scaffolding, and some sort of gooy breakfast cereal which the crew refused to eat.

Naturally, Klempson wouldn't let anybody into the hold to see his fantastic construction. meanwhile everybody on the ship was waiting with bated breath to see this thing.

Eventually, Klempson asked for the doors of the hold to be cleared and the winch to be lowered inside. Then, with much handsignalling, easy does it, and left hand down a touch, the contraption emerged. According to Bert it was the most fantastic thing he'd ever seen, a mass of gooyed honeycomb, smeared over an assembleage of netting and masts and spars and broken yards, and 4*2 and 8*4.

Klempson gave the order to swing this thing over the side. Then, before instructing the winch driver to release the chains. He said, "Now Listen Everybody".

Bert said, "As Klempson's creation hit the water, we all heard it. It went KUSSSSSSH!!!"

There was a preamble to this story, which I forget in its entirity. However, it involved the venereal disease test which the sailors had to undergo before they could sign the ship's articles. One poor sod had just come back from the far east, and didn't want the examination. "I've been on the flying fish run" he said, "And you can't lean against the side of the ship out there without getting a soft shanker. What kind of a miserable crew have I signed up with, that you'd begrudge your mate a bottle of piss."

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 11 Dec 07 - 02:15 PM

The sleeve job was the basis of the Orson Welles film 'The Lady From Shanghai'.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: GUEST,Edthefolkie
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 09:43 AM

Thanks Fred for the KUSSSHmaker! Brought back a few memories.

Bert did a gig at the Merlin's some time in 1973 and told that story. All of us young folkies sat there enthralled and none of us saw the punchline coming! Blimey, I can almost hear his voice now.

For me, it was like sitting at the feet of a (kindly) God. He was a truly great man.

Incidentally isn't it Bert at the back in that famous photo of Dylan doing a floor spot at the Cousins or somewhere?

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 12 Dec 07 - 10:58 AM

It is, along with MacColl. The photograph was taken at the Singers Club which in those days was (if I remember aright), at the Princess Louise.

Subject: RE: Recordings of Bert Lloyd's storytelling
From: GUEST,Mark Gregory
Date: 17 Dec 07 - 11:29 PM

I met Bert in 1969 in London and recorded a couple of interviews with him and also a concert he organised at the Singers Club in Kings Cross.

Bert brought the house down with a long (twelve and half minutes) story he told towards the end of the concert and now I've put the story online so you can listen to it!

http://folkstream.com/reviews/lloyd/centenary.html