Hull sea shanties?

Subject: Hull sea shanties?
From: Jane of 'ull
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:21 PM

After being inspired by hull shanty festival at the weekend, I was wondering if anyone knows of any shanties or sea songs specifically about Hull?

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:32 PM

Look at this link.

I bought one of their CDs (Fish Out of Water) in the mudcat auction and I love it. The lyrics are on the site and "The Luckiest Sailor" specifically mentions Hull.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 02:39 PM

The Kingston Peridot sank with the loss of all hands in 1968. It was one of three trawler tragedies for the fishing port of Hull. Within a short space of time, the Ross Cleveland, the St Romanus and the Kingston Peridot all suffered the same fate. The above is a true account of how one young sailor managed to avoid tragedy

The above is taken from the link I gave you (The Luckiest Sailor Song). It really is a lovely song.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Marc Bernier
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 03:45 PM

Truly a beautiful song, but not a chanty.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Marc Bernier
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 03:47 PM

Sorry about the CH spelling. I'm an American, that's the way we spell chanty.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Jane of 'ull
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 04:11 PM

Or even any songs about the docks, or the decline of the fishing industry in Hull? anything Hull really x

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 05:09 PM

I hadn't seen that spelling for shanty before. I've looked it up and it can be spelled chantey from the French word chanter.

No sea songs or shanties here but I couldn't resist the link for the title of the article :-)

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Crane Driver
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 05:14 PM

Well, I wrote a song 'Big Lil' about Lilian Bilocca, who led a campaign in the '60s to improve safety standards aboard Hull trawlers. You can read the words on our website here.

We recorded the song on our CD 'Characters', or if you PM me with your email address, I can send you an MP3 of a couple of verses. You're very welcome to sing the song if it grabs you.

Andrew

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Willa
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 05:21 PM

You won't do better than the Hissyfit CDs, Jane.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: GUEST,Joe P at home
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 05:33 PM

At Beverley Festival this year Mike Waterson sang a song about the decline of fishing in Hull, if that is of any interest.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: GUEST,suzi
Date: 11 Sep 08 - 05:48 PM

Hesle road...maye not a shanty, but about hull fishermen.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: ossonflags
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 02:14 AM

Mick Watersons "Three day Millionare"

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Linda Kelly
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 02:53 AM

Can't think of any Hull shanties- mine are definitely not!

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Paul Burke
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 03:33 AM

The Collier Brig ends up (I think) in Hull. If there is (or was) a Druids Arms there.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: peregrina
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 04:02 AM

You could browse the keyword search in the Yorkshire Garland Website to find its songs about Hull:here

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: GUEST,buspassed
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 05:32 AM

Mike Waterson wrote a song about Hull trawerlermen that was featured in Alan Plater's BBC drama 'Land of Green Ginger' but for the life of me can't remember the title.

The Watersons [then including Bernie Vickers, pre Martin Carthy] provided the sound track for the film and did perform in one sequence, think it was upstairs in the Haworth Arms.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 05:47 AM

Does this Count?; Grimsby is pretty close to Hull :-) Again, another sea song. I can't think of any Hull shanties either but I haven't given up yet!

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: theleveller
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 07:36 AM

Well, I've written a couple myself about the Hull whaling trade – one called 'Where is My Bonnie William Tonight?' about The Diana – the last whaler to operate out of Hull, and another about the dangers that awaited whaling lads when they got back to port, called 'Here Be Dragons'.

Mike Waterson has written a few songs about trawlermen, notable Three Day Millionaire and I'm a Man.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Schantieman
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 07:49 AM

There's the one in which the chorus goes:

From 'Ull and 'Ell and 'Alifax, good Lord deliver me!

...mentioning four Yorkshire towns in one go.   Is it the Dalesman's Litany?

S

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: peregrina
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 07:54 AM

yes; Dalesman's litany

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: theleveller
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 08:05 AM

It is The Dalesman's Litany but it's also a song I wrote because my grandad called that The Beggar's Litany as it's about the people who were turned out following Enclosures in Yorkshire. The things beggars feared were being pressganged in Hull, dying 'without benefit of clergy' because they were itinerant and the Halifax Gibbet, which was an early form of guillotine.

You can hear my version (just a home recording) on
http://www.myspace.com/whipstafffolk

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: theleveller
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 08:08 AM

Or hopefully with blue clicky thing

http://www.myspace.com/whipstafffolk

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Greg B
Date: 12 Sep 08 - 08:59 PM

Let's face it--- without a Hull, there's no chanty would exist at
all.

You can do without a rig (put in an engine).

You can do without an engine (put up a rig).

You can do with out a galley, without a fo'c's'le, without
a handsome cabin boy, without anyting...

...but not without a Hull.

Without a Hull--- well, you just don't float.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: GUEST,s
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 03:10 AM

Not a shanty....Harry Eddom

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: danensis
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 05:13 AM

"Without a Hull--- well, you just don't float."

What about that chicken on a raft?

John

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Graham and Jo
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 06:54 AM

Jo's 'Walton street fair' song is not a shanty, but can be done with gusto and has a choras, which is sort of like a shanty.
Topical now with the fair just comming up.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Willa
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 08:42 AM

Ewan McColl/Frankie Armstrong's Lament for the Hull Trawlers; again not a shanty but about the 'Triple Trawler Tragedy'.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: GUEST,Pete
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 09:39 AM

The Final Trawl is about the decline of the fishing industry, but nit specific to Hull.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Jane of 'ull
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 11:55 AM

Wow thanks for the help, so far theres been some interesting songs! Do you think the authors of these songs would mind them being performed within a play, as long as permission was asked first?

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Crane Driver
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 12:21 PM

Most song writers I know would be only too pleased for their songs to be performed - that's why we write 'em. You're certainly welcome to use 'Big Lil' if it fits.

Andrew

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 13 Sep 08 - 03:05 PM

The only shanty that mentions Hull is a Bert Lloyd special. (In other words he made it up and claimed he'd collected it, like much of his stuff)
It's a version of 'Heave away me Johnny' (which has other connotations on Hessle Road). The verse goes

' Fare ye well ye Kingston Girls, farewell St Andrews Dock
Heave away me Johnny, he-ee-ee-eave away,
If ever we return again we'll make your cradles rock.
Heave away, me jo-olly boys, we're all bound to go.

If he'd hung around in Hull for a little longer he'd have known that there's no such creatures as Kingston girls (Unless they support Rovers) only 'Ull lasses.

Kidson did a little bit of collecting in Hull and turned up a couple of pieces, but at the time when these traditional songs were being sung nobody in Hull bothered. By the time we came along in the sixties all of the trawlermen were well into C&W and the latest pop stuff.

The only thing we ever got of any relevance was a little one verser about what the fishermen's wives got upto while their husbands were away.

Subject: RE: Hull sea shanties?
From: GUEST,buspassed
Date: 14 Sep 08 - 05:33 AM

Not forgetting that fine body of women working across the Humber in the fish processing factories in Grimsby, the Pattie Slappers as they were known [not in their presence of course unless you fancied being tied to a sack barrow with a broomhandle pushed through the arms of your overalls and your lower garments around your ankles to be then trundled around the factory!

Seems like only yesterday! Thank heaven camera phones didn't exist in the early '60's!