Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig

Subject: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Glevum
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 05:38 PM

I'm looking for the lyrics to a song about a Gloucester Old Spot Pig eating fallen apples in the orchard.
It's a short song (as I remember)

Glevum (not-so-old spot pig)
Cavia_P (Guinea Pig)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 06:00 PM

I found out what a Gloucester Old Spot pig is, but I didn't find a song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 21 Jan 02 - 06:49 PM

"Songs, Stories, and a Mummers' Play from Gloucestershire", by Michael David Kean Price (aka Mike Price of Gloucestershire Morris and City of Gloucester Mummers), published in 1972 price 30p, included the following round (which the Songwainers and other members of Old Spot Morris used to perform regularly):

"Whose pigs are these?

Whose pigs are these?

They are John Potts,

I can tell 'em by their spots,

And I found 'em in the vicarage garden."

I also recall hearing a variant, which went,

"They are Mrs Potter's

You can tell'em by their trotters

And I found them in the peas".

Mike's note says this is a round from the Slad valley, which he collected from an old lady in 1967, during a Wolf cub map-reading test.

I haven't seen Mike for a long time - probably not since Gloucester Mummers were performing their play on Boxing Day (1979 I think) in the precincts of Gloucester Cathedral, and he introduced me to Laurie Lee ("Cider with Rosie", "As I roved out" etc) who was also in the audience, being a patron of Gloucester Mummers.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Cavia_P
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 10:34 AM

Sorcha and Kitty,
Thank you for your help. The link to Gloucester Old Spot brought up all sorts of interesting info, but not the song (yet). We tried an E-mail to BBC Radio Gloucester to see if they come up with anything.
Kitty, your song looks familiar to me, I knew a tune to it straight away. I will see if that's the one Glevum remembered.

Regards,
Cavia_P

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: The_one_and_only_Dai
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 10:38 AM

In one of the 'Two Fat Ladies' programmes, I remember hearing a song sung by some chap who had Old Spots, and this wasn't the one... but I'm dashed if I can remember anything else about it. A spot (aha!) of research is called for here...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 22 Jan 02 - 05:01 PM

Cavia P

Yes, sorry, I haven't got the hang of providing tunes properly but I wondered whether it would be obvious from the cadence of the words. It's a variant of the tune for 3 jolly rogues of Lymm / In good King Arthur's Day.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Glevum
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 02:56 AM

Not yet found the words I remember
Interested in the two fat ladies thing, did not hear it myself, it may be what I'm after.
Interested in the book mentioned we will try and trace that.

The search continues

Glevum

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 12:25 PM

Incidently the words that Herga Kitty were sung as a round by the Songwainers. It was always difficult stopping the audience once they'd got going with all the parts (another lot were always coming in) so they used to shift it to hallelujah Chorus tune when they'd had enough.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 02:45 PM

I was once at a Folk Club where a stand-in organiser had made a pig's ear of organising the floor spots. Several really crap acts had been given three songs each (and had wasted time with tuning and long intros) and a well-respected performer was put on at the end and told to do one short number. Rather piqued he started "Pigs" off, then left the stage and went back to his seat. It took the organiser over 10 minutes to get the audience to stop.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 03:23 PM

Dave, I'm now very tempted to sing this at the MBS reunion next month. As I remember, it was Mike Price, wearing his Zonker for President baseball cap, who,after months of abstinence from alcohol, muttered "Oh sod it", put a tenner over the bar of the Anchor to buy everyone a round - shows you how long ago that was - and initiated the first sing in the Anchor after the signs saying "No hairies, no folkies" had disappeared. Tony Day thinks the MBS started in 1979 - possibly they did, but singing in the Anchor predated that and involved bits of Herga, Alan White and Fred Rook.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 04:25 PM

This should really be in your MBS thread, but I can assure you that the AMB singaround was started at least a year earlier than that. Sheila Finn of Folk London was with me at the time and can vouch for it. Charlie Yarwood, Myself, and I think, Ken Stevens were looking for somewhere to have a session with Fred Jordan, Mervyn Vincent, and old Tom Brown (you might be able to work out the year from that). It was just as Melodeons and Bodrhans had started to proliferate to an unhealthy degree. The only spot we could find was the middle bar - there was a musician's session going on in the front bar and the usual dance out on the lawn at the back. It just carried on from there. A guy from Minehead who used to sing "Little Lize" was also involved at the beginning.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Glevum
Date: 23 Jan 02 - 06:01 PM

At Beverley Folk Festival '99 an older singer-sonwriter held a traditional singer's workshop in the Friary. He lived in the South West and was paid to promote singing in community groups as I recall. If anyone knows who I am talking about, or has a Beverley '99 program handy, I am pretty sure he knows the song or would know where to find it.

Glevum

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Les from Hull
Date: 24 Jan 02 - 12:32 PM

You could try getting in touch with Chris Wade (the Beverley Folk Festival organiser)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 02:29 PM

Whose pigs are these?
Oh whose pigs are these?
They are John Pott's
And I know them by their spots
And I found them in the vicarage garden..

They are Bill Spear's
And I know them by their ears..

The are Sally Dale's
And I know them by their tails..

They are Farmer Hunt's
And I know them by their....grunts..
And I found them in the vicarage garden

Whose pigs are these?
Oh whose pigs are these?
They are Geoff Potter's
And I know them by their trotters
And I found them in the vicarage garden..

What's their disease,
What's their disease,
They've got the pox,
I can tell by the spots,
And I found them in the vicarage garden.



One may hear it sung on Youtube at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wpc1Lp1H60


The song name is likely "Whose Pigs Are These"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: Jeri
Date: 11 Sep 12 - 04:49 PM

First, the story.
I go to Old Songs Festival in Altamont, NY, where it almost always rains--at least a little bit. So they sell cheap plastic rain ponchos, often with something folkish imprinted on them. I had one in my car's trunk from sometime in the past.

It has the dots (in Bb);
It has ©George Ward 1996;
And it has one verse:

I'll sing to you of a wondrous beast that oft did root and graze
From Altamont to Albany NY in the golden bygone days.
No sty nor pen did the Dutch man build, though his swine grew wondrous big:
His glass he'd raise when he sang in praise of his Gloucester Old Spot Pig!

------------
I know there was more to the song, and I believe the above is the chorus. I'll send George a message.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Gloucester Old Spot pig
From: GUEST,999
Date: 17 Oct 12 - 09:12 PM

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