Lyr Req: Sam Shuttle and Betty Reedhook

Subject: Sam Shuttle and Betty Reedhook
From: GUEST,Pie Jarvis
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 09:19 AM

Hi

Has anyone got the lyrics to this song by Harry Boardman? I have it in cd but I am struggling to work out what they all are. Perhaps my Lancashire Dialect isn't up to it!

Thanks

Subject: RE: Sam Shuttle and Betty Reedhook
From: Ar Wysg
Date: 06 Aug 08 - 09:31 AM

I once got the song from a book in Bristol library. If I find it I will provide the lyrics, but others may have it more to hand.

Richard.

Subject: RE: Sam Shuttle and Betty Reedhook
From: Bill S from Adelaide
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 09:05 AM

Words and music are in Folk Songs and Ballads of Lancashire by Harry and Lesley Boardman, words Trad Tune arr Harry copyright Maypole Music. If you can't find it, let me know what words you are after.

Wassail
Bill

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sam Shuttle and Betty Reedhook
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 07 Aug 08 - 11:45 AM

Harry probably got the words from a broadside. The only version I have is in Martha Vicinus's Broadsides of the Industrial North as printed on a Harkness of Preston broadside. There may be a copy on the Bodleian Ballads website. If not let me know which bits you're not sure of and I'll check them out for you. Oddly it doesn't seem to be in Harland and and Wilkinson.

Subject: Lyr Add: SAM SHUTTLE AND BETTY REEDHOOK
From: Richard Spencer
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 08:50 AM

SAM SHUTTLE AND BETTY REEDHOOK

I'm going for to give you a very strange narration,
But what I tell is really true of my own observation.
A lass there was as nice a one an'bonnie an' you'd need look,
She was a steam loom weaver and they called her Betty Reedhook

There was a chap in love wi' her, he said quite to distraction,
And wanted well to marry her, in spite of all objection,
This was an overlooker, that came her loom to fettle,
He worked at t' top o' Lackey Moor, and they called him Sammy Shuttle.

Now Betty couldn't bear this chap, though some fine things her(sic) took her,
A spark in t' warehouse won her slap, he were a sly cutlooker,
And when she took her cuts to him, they'd so much fune(sic) and prate, sir,
He always passed o'er all her faults, and never used to bate her.

When Sam yeard o' these goings on, in a passion then he flies up,
Swearing if he met that man, he'd smartly knock his eyes up,
A challenge then he sent to him, on killing him he reckoned,
And he'd take wi' him Billy Crape, and he should act as second.

T'cutlooker said he'd fight the mon, in any part o' th' town sirs,
If it must be on t' Owdham plan, a regular up and down, sirs,
So at Lackey Moor they did meet, that very same afternoon, sirs,
And he geet half a pound o' stamps, to put in his new shoon, sirs,

Sam first took a punce at him, but th' cutlooker he legged him,
Gan him some cross buttockers, and down to t' floor he pegged him,
He geet his fingers in his throat, and twisted o'er so nimbly,
That Sam at last was forced to give in, when he found he'd stopped his chimbley.

When Betty yeard that Sam had lost, on him no notice took, sirs,
But went out walking Sunday last, with that same sly cutlooker,
Sam swore he could not stand it, on them no more he'd look,
He'd blow his brains out wi' his shuttle, or stab him with his reedhook

Enjoy singing it!

Regards

Richard

---

Source: My very old and battered copy of Folk Songs and Ballads of Lancashire by Harry and Lesley Boardman

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sam Shuttle and Betty Reedhook
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Aug 08 - 03:31 PM

'ow does it fit in wi' Sam's party then?

Owd Sammy Shuttleworth o' Lancashire
'e 'ad a party, last neet
All the lasses an' t'lads were theer
Jammed in t'doorway, jam'teet

Or were Sammy Shuttle an' Sammy Shuttleworth two diff'rent blokes?

:D

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sam Shuttle and Betty Reedhook
From: GUEST,Pie#
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 06:05 AM

Thank you Richard. I am singing it now! You've managed to fill in all the dodgy gaps that I had previously been filling in with nonsense! Cheers. All I need now is some clogs so I can do a nice percussive bit after the fight scene.

Dave- I think this is entirely different to Sammy Shuttleworth. Sam Shuttle and variations thereof seems to be the Lancastrian equivalent of 'John Smith'.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Sam Shuttle and Betty Reedhook
From: GUEST,Brian Peters (in W Va)
Date: 09 Aug 08 - 06:50 PM

This was the first Harry Boardman song I ever heard - as a seventeen-year-old - when my then girlfriend played me the 'Owdham Edge' LP. It blew my head off. The rest is history (to me, at least).