search - Mining ballads from Shropshire

Subject: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 08 Oct 08 - 08:12 AM

Hi - I'm looking fot mining ballads from Shropshire - especially from the Ironbridge area if possible - any help appreciated!
Dave
www.sunshinearts.co.uk

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: nutty
Date: 08 Oct 08 - 08:53 AM

You may find somethings of interest here .......

Victoria's Inferno

or

The Urban and Industrial Songs of the Black Country

or

Songs of the Inland waterways

or

The Jolly Machine

or

you may be able to pick some of these up on abe books (http://www.abebooks.co.uk/?AID=5435717&PID=1457557&SID=1)

books by Jon Raven

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 09 Oct 08 - 07:24 AM

Refresh

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: GUEST,HughM
Date: 09 Oct 08 - 07:55 AM

There's the Gresford Disaster - was that in Shropshire? Don't know where to find the lyrics though.

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 09 Oct 08 - 07:58 AM

No. Gresford is near Wrexham.

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 09 Oct 08 - 09:51 AM

These two poems have been set to music.

A Shropshire Lad - Sir John Betjeman
Recited by him on Betjeman's Banana Blush

The gas was on in the Institute,
The flare was up in the gym,
A man was running a mineral line,
A lass was singing a hymn,
When Captain Webb the Dawley man,
Captain Webb from Dawley,
Came swimming along the old canal
That carried the bricks to Lawley,
Swimming along, swimming along,
Swimming along from Severn,
And paying a call at Dawley Bank
While swimming along to Heaven.

A Shropshire Lad XXIII - A E Housman
Sung by Polly Bolton on Lovliest of Trees

The lads in their hundreds to Ludlow come in for the fair,
There's men from the barn and the forge and the mill and the fold,
The lads for the girls and the lads for the liquor are there,
And there with the rest are the lads that will never be old.

There's chaps from the town and the field and the till and the cart,
And many to count are the stalwart, and many the brave,
And many the handsome of face and the handsome of heart,
And few that will carry their looks or their truth to the grave.

I wish one could know them, I wish there were tokens to tell
The fortunate fellows that now you can never discern;
And then one could talk with them friendly and wish them farewell
And watch them depart on the way that they will not return.

But now you may stare as you like and there's nothing to scan;
And brushing your elbow unguessed-at and not to be told
They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 09 Oct 08 - 02:46 PM

Thanks for the help so far - it's actually mining ballads that we need
(and I live in Capt.Webbs birth[place of Dawley!)

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: Darowyn
Date: 10 Oct 08 - 03:45 AM

It's always possible that a majority of the coal miners of the Severn Valley area were incomers from mining areas that were established earlier. It was a very common phenomenon in mining. There was a lot of internal migration from Yorkshire into the Staffordshire mines, for example, and when the Selby coalfield was opened in more recent times, miners were brought in from all over the country.
It could be the reason that there does not appear to be much in the way of distinctively Shropshire mining songs- the miners just stuck with the songs from back home.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 10 Oct 08 - 11:04 AM

The East Shropshire coalfield was worked for a very long time and genertations of colliers took part. In fact miners went from here to the Black Country - in Bilston they lived in 'Shropshire Row'!

Just an aside - I was looking at old records of morris dancing in this area - which had many groups of dancers - and noted that they 'danced with pickaxe handles' - bit unwieldy I thought, them saw a miners pickaxe handle - they are of course only about 15-18 inches long -it's impossible to use a long handle in a three foot seam!!

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 10 Oct 08 - 06:27 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: Dave Hunt
Date: 11 Oct 08 - 04:32 AM

Refresh - still looking!

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: GUEST,CC
Date: 29 Oct 17 - 11:17 AM

Hi Dave -

Would also love to find some of these songs - where are you playing? We're in the Gorge and sometimes go to the Mucky Duck! :)

Subject: RE: search - Mining ballads from Shropshire
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 30 Oct 17 - 06:15 AM

http://www.shropshirecmc.org.uk/below/1996_1w.pdf

Magazine 1995; Stiperstones Miners Poems
Verse about three local preachers killed in Snailbeach mine disaster