Lyr/Tune Req: Any Old Iron? (Harry Champion)

Subject: Any old iron?
From: MMario
Date: 23 May 02 - 02:51 PM

okay - after a LONG time searching I have found the chorus. Anyone have the dots or a midi or something for the VERSE that could be posted?

---

Any Old Iron (in DT)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Noreen
Date: 23 May 02 - 05:47 PM

Sorry, I don't remember ever hearing the verse, though the chorus tune is very well known.

I'm now wondering why the entry in the DT says @Irish.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST,Jim
Date: 23 May 02 - 06:12 PM

I'm with Noreen here, knowing the chorus well but never having heard a tune for the verse.

And, at the risk of transatlantic misunderstanding...

Irish, my arse!

Jim

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 23 May 02 - 06:33 PM

Hey, "Any Old Iron" is on the Chieftains' Irish Evening CD - so it's gotta be Irish, right?
Well, no, Roger Daltrey sings it (just the chorus) on the album, and he calls it a "London folk song."
I have Harry Champion singing the whole song on a CD called Cockney Kings of Music Hall. The recording is dated 17 October, 1911.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Snuffy
Date: 23 May 02 - 07:17 PM

DON'T DILLY DALLY (MY OLD MAN) is also listed as @Irish in the DT - how many more?

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 23 May 02 - 07:25 PM

Snuffy,

The DT is a great resource but it shouldnt be used academically. It's full of errors.

The owner is seemingly unwilling to update it and refuses all offers of help.

Caveat Emptor

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 May 02 - 08:16 PM

Any Old Iron (Peter Sellers version): Any Old Iron

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 May 02 - 08:22 PM

This was the signature piece for Harry Champion, an old music hall performer (BBC notes)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 May 02 - 08:26 PM

Another site with the classic: Any Old Iron

Link fixed. --JoeClone, 24-Jun-03.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Noreen
Date: 23 May 02 - 08:43 PM

Dicho, that link gives ERROR 404 : Page Not Found :0(

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 May 02 - 12:23 AM

Noreen, that one plays tricks. Best to forget it. I always check back. The first time I waited for the redirect after the error page. Then I x-ed off some adds, and there it was. I just did it again and nothing beyond the adds.

Here is one that has three different verses after the chorus of the Sellars version above: Any Old Iron?

I would like to find the old Harry Champion version, but only cds are listed. Any one have it?

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Scabby Douglas
Date: 24 May 02 - 07:04 AM

If you're still having problems, try contacting this chap: [e-mail]

Max Tyler is the historian of the British Music Hall Society (if I got his title right), and he very kindly helped me to get words and music for a Will Fyffe song recently.

http://www.music-hall-society.com/

Hope that helps:

Cheers

Steven

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 24 May 02 - 07:36 AM

Well done Dicho! That's the DT version that MMario linked to in his first post...

Subject: Lyr Add: ANY OLD IRON
From: Willa
Date: 24 May 02 - 05:53 PM

Dicho,

1. Just a week or two ago my dear old Uncle Bill,
He went and kicked the bucket and he left me in his will.
So I went around the road to see my Auntie Jane.
She said, "your Uncle Bill has left you a watch and chain."
So I put it on right across my derby kell.
The sun was shining on it and it made me look a swell.
I went out, strolling round about.
A crowd of kiddies followed me and they began to shout,

"Any old iron? Any old iron?
Any, any, any old iron?
You look neat. Talk about a treat!
You look so dapper from your napper to your feet.
Dressed in style, brand-new tile,
And your father's old green tie on.
But I wouldn't give you tuppence for your old watch and chain,
Old iron, old iron."

2. I won't forget the day I went to London on the spree.
I saw the mayor of London there. That's who I went to see.
He came along in a carriage and a pair.
I shouted, "come on, boys! All throw your hats up in the air."
Just then the mayor, he began to smile,
Pointed to my face and said, "Lor Lummy, what a dial!"
Started Lord-a-mayoring, and then to my dismay,
He pointed to my watch and chain and shouted to me, "Hey,
Any old iron? ..."

3. I shan't forget the day I married Miss Elisa Brown.
The way the people laughed at me, it made me feel a clown.
I arrived in a carriage called a hack,
When I suddenly discovered I'd my trousers front to back.
So I walked down the aisle, dressed in style,
The vicar took a look at me and then began to smile.
The organ started playing. The bells began to ring.
The people started laughing and the choir began to sing,
"Any old iron? ..."

Kicked the bucket = died.
Derby kell = a portly chest/stomach.
A swell = a well off gentleman
Dial = Cockney slang for face

Harry Champion - Cockney Bill of London Town (CDR3)
Harry Champion (real name William Crump) was born in Shoreditch, London in 1866 and first appeared in Music Hall at the age of 15. In 1888, he changed his stage name from Will Conray, and with a wide repertoire of songs, many of them sung at breakneck speed, he became one of music hall's most successful artists. Harry Champion continued working into his seventies and died in London in January 1942.

http://www.btinternet.com/~bill78/cdissues.htm#3

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: greg stephens
Date: 24 May 02 - 06:00 PM

My favourite misattribution is "The Lish Young buy a Broom" which can be found variously on theinternet as Irish, Scottish and Celtic. Though not, so far, as fado or blues, but give'em time.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 May 02 - 06:45 PM

Thanks, Willa, much appreciated. Cockney slang appears more and more in the States and Canada. I always thought kicked the bucket was American (Mencken, "The American Language," says it is, and western). But it could well have been brought over by English immigrants who went west. A "Swell" was common many years ago, but has pretty well vanished. "Derby kell" is new to me. We used to call a big stomach a "corporation." I think "dial" is everywhere; it is claimed by the Scots as well.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: The Walrus
Date: 24 May 02 - 09:00 PM

Dicho,

"Derby Kell" is a shortening of "Derby Kelly" - Belly (and, If I remember correctly, the "Derby" of "Derby & Joan") and appears in another (I think) Champion song "Boiled Beef and Carrots"
"....That's the stuff for your Derby Kell,
Makes you fat and keeps you well..."
"Corporation" for a large stomach used to be fairly common in London too. An interesting version was also (the maritime influenced) "tumblehome", not common, but certainly used (the "tumblehome" was the bulged shape of a wooden ship in cross section, wider in the beam than at deck level).

Walrus

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 May 02 - 10:41 PM

Looked in DT and Forum Search- "Boiled Beef and Carrots" not there, or doesn't come up with "boiled beef." I am surprised that these old music hall songs are lacking.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: okthen
Date: 25 May 02 - 01:18 PM

Can anyone explain the significance of "brand new tile"?Is it "Dressed in style (like a )brand new tile" or has it some other slang meaning? cheers bill

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 May 02 - 01:48 PM

A tile was a top-hat.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 May 02 - 12:42 PM

Tile was in use in the States as well, esp. applied to the cheap top hat that could be collapsed.
A version of "Any Old Iron" in Google refers to "Darby Gel."

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Willa
Date: 28 May 02 - 03:00 PM

I have the words to "Boiled Beef and Carrots" if anyone wants me to post them.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: MMario
Date: 28 May 02 - 03:11 PM

YES!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Willa
Date: 28 May 02 - 05:22 PM

MMario: see the new 'Boiled beef and carrots' thread

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 13 Jun 02 - 11:59 PM

G'day Dicho,

"... always thought kicked the bucket was American (Mencken, "The American Language," says it is, and western ..."

It's difficult to tie this sort of thing down, since the really 'authoritative' texts only consider published usages. Slang can slip through the net - until someone uses it in a book or journal. A few good examples show up in The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (a reworking of Capt. Grose's 1797 Dictionary of London Street Slang and University Wit). This contains terms like:

Screw = Sexual intercourse
and
Pig = Policeman (or equivalent of the day)

These (and similar) words had completely fallen out of London use by mid-nineteenth century ... but re-appeared in 20th century American novels - and were thus considered to be "American neologisms" - until arcane little dictionaries like this one began to be dragged out of collections and republished in facsimile.

Regards,

Bob Bolton (the one whose dictionary bookcase needs expansion ... again!)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Jun 02 - 01:00 AM

Eh, Bob! I have a paper copy of the Vulgar Tongue. It is a fun book. Several times I have picked up slang in books that is older than the compendia say. The one I mentioned, H. L. Mencken's "The American Language" is useful in spite of some errors; there are plenty of used copies around so it should be cheap and easy if you don't have it (4th ed. was the last revision??). Mencken is the inventor of "booboisie."
A prison guard is also a "screw," which as "screw it (you)" means the Hell with it (you); to "screw it down" means to get something absolutely correctly, or "nailed down." Then something that is all fouled (fucked) up is "all screwed up" and a nut is "screwy," as well as something that is not understandable ("That's screwy"). "I'm screwed" means I've lost. "Screw around" means to mess about. Useful word, that.
Which reminds me, someone told me that snafu (situation normal, all fucked up) is not a WW 2 contribution, but appeared in a comment on an old British Army report of Boer War time- I wouldn't doubt it. I'm sure an old retired British Civil servant would know a lot of slang that hasn't been recorded yet.

Subject: Tune Add: ANY OLD IRON?
From: OldPossum
Date: 23 Jun 03 - 01:02 PM

X:18
T:Any Old Iron?
B:Bumper Book of Music Hall Songs, ed. Peter Foss, EMI Music Publishing Ltd 1988
C:Words and Music by Chas. Collins, E. A. Sheppard and Fred Terry
N:filename[ OLDIRON
M:C
L:1/8
K:C
[| c>B c>d c>B A>G | c>B c>d c4 | e>^d e>d e>d e>c |
w: Just a week or two a-go my|poor old Un-cle Bill,|Went and kick'd the buck-et and he|
d>e d>c A3 A | B>c d>B A>G G>A |
w: left me in his will. The|o-ther day I popp'd a-round to|
B>c d>B A3 A | A>B c>B A>B c>A | B>c d>B G4 |
w: see poor Aun-tie Jane, She|said "Your Unc-le Bill has left to|you a watch and chain."|
c2 c>c c4 | c>B c>d c4 | c>B c>d c>B A>G |
w: I put it on|right a-cross my vest,|Thought I look'd a dan-dy as it|
B>A B>c d4 | d>^c d>e d>=c B>A |
w: dan-gled on my chest.|Just to flash it off I star-ted|
B>A B>c d3 d | d>d d>d d>c B>A | d>c B>A G4 |
w: wal-king round a-bout, A|lot of kid-dies foll-ow'd me and|all be-gan to shout:|
|: c c c2 c4 | c c c2 c4 | e>e e>e d2 c2 | A2 c4 z2 | d2 d2 d4 |
w: "An-y old iron|an-y old iron|An-y an-y old, old i-ron?|You look neat|
d>c B>c d4 | d2 d2 d>e d>c | B>c d>B G4 | c2 c2 c4 |
w: talk a-bout a treat,|You look dap-per from your|nap-per to your feet.|Dress'd in style,|
c2 c2 c2 c>d | e2 e2 d2 c2 | B2 d4 e>d | c>A A>A A>B c>A |
w: brand new tile, And your|fath-er's old green|tie on, But I|would-n't give you tup-pence for your|
G2 E2 E2 G2 | c2 e4 c2 | d2 c4 z2 :|]
w: old watch chain, Old|i-ron old|i-ron?"|

---

Click to play

To play or display ABC tunes, try concertina.net

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST,Handsome
Date: 24 Jun 03 - 11:42 AM

Derby Kelly = Belly

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST,Thorflyn
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 09:21 PM

I have what is probably a dumb question... what exactly does "any old iron" mean?   I am in the states so maybe it isn't such a dumb question... =-)

thorflyn

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 09:51 PM

It means exactly what it says. Scrap metal merchants used to go round the streets with a horse and cart (later on, various kinds of motor vehicle; but there were still horse-and-cart traders in London when I was a child, and I'm only 50) calling their trade ("Old Iron!" or "Rag and Bones!") and buying junk for what we now call re-cycling.

The point here is that the watch-and-chain the narrator is so proud of looks like worthless junk to everybody else.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Feb 05 - 10:16 PM

My 2 year old son is learning these old music hall songs from the muppets (his favorite shows) Kermit and Fozzie sing "Any Old Iron", Miss Piggy sings "Dilly Dally- My old man". They just call it "Music Hall" so I really don't know the names of them but my son absolutely loves them. I figure some day he's going to ask me what they mean. Thanks for that explanation though.. I have more questions but should probably post them in their own posts.

Thorflyn

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 17 Feb 05 - 03:16 PM

Thorflyn

Re Any Old Iron: "Iron" = "Iron Hoof" it was (is?) at one time cockney rhyming slang for a "Poof" (Fag if you are in the US). We used to use it in the 60s/70s but it goes back to Harry Champion's time at least. The green tie was also a sign that you were of that persuasion according to a very interesting newspaper article published here a few years back. Unfortunately I cannot remember which one or the date. I believe the watch and chain was also used in some way to denote the same thing.

Re the green tie motif this also turns up in another music hall context in Billy Bennett's "Green Tie On The Little Yellow Dog" whch is a send up of "The Green Eye of the Litle Yellow God".

There is a whole CD of Bennett's material available on the Topic label in London which I highly reccomend

Hoot

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Mar 05 - 05:17 AM

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 05 - 02:26 PM

here's sum helpull (still in use) cockney slang if u want it :

jack jones : on ya own
new delhi : belly
pork chop : cop (pig, get it)
jackanory : story
bacon & eggs : legs
Aristotle : bottle
cock linet : minute
butchers hook : look
rubee murray : curry
dicky bird : word
ruba dub dub : pu
loaf 'o bread : head
scarpa flow : go
teaf : thief
rosee lea : tea
wife : trouble & strife
bunts & burna : earna.......

modern day London slang is highly influenced by carabean slang.. & a lot by american jargon also.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 22 May 05 - 03:38 PM

Guest Hoot, you are letting your imagination (or someone else's, maybe, that's spun you a yarn) run away with you. The search for hidden meanings in music hall songs is the nearest thing to a complete waste of time. They generally mean just what they say - and where there does happen to be a double entendre or a saucy implication it is usually so screamingly obvious that it doesn't need a folklorist or an expert in social history or historical slang to explain it. A song about homosexuality would have got Harry Champion hooted off the stage in 1911 - and the hall would have lost its licence. Just let 'Any Old Iron' be a funny cockney song. That's what it was and is.

By the way, I think it was the greenFLY on the little yellow dog. A boringly ordinary heterosexual canine with a nasty attack of garden parasites.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 24 May 05 - 09:19 AM

Billy Weeks,

Thankyou for your insight. Where does
it come from? Music Halls being closed down and losing their licence ?, Harry Champion would have been booted off stage for referring to homosexualty ? I think you live in a world of your own.

Did you or your family ever attend a music hall? My parents, grandparents and great grandparents grew up in Hoxton, Shoreditch and Bethnal Green and regulary attended the Brittania, Paragon, Collins etc etc. I learned many Music hall songs from them on regular coach outings and family parties. I also saw several of the old acts myself in the dying days of music hall. Did Max Miller ever get booted off stage ? Did the audience believe that all those women in top hat and tails purely played the part on stage and weren't really butch ?

I also had a great uncle that wore make up and earings and sang in the pubs of Bethnal Green and was referred to by the family as a Nancy. This would have been around 1910 - 1920. Never heard of him having problems when performing.

You will be telling me next that "Round The Horn" wold have been taken off BBC radio if Kenneth Williams and Hugh Paddick were playing the part of poofs.

Sorry to have to disagree.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 31 May 05 - 05:06 AM

No harm in disagreeing, Hootenanny, particularly if it is done in a temperate way. And I hope, by the way, that my earlier post gave no offence. But much of what you say, particularly about Max and 'Round the Horn' is plainly irrelevant to consideration of a song sung in 1911 (which was the date of Harry Champion's 'Any Old Iron') and to social conditions and opinions of that time. There are plenty of documented examples - to labour only one point - of licensing authorities around the turn of the century objecting strongly to material that we would think quite acceptable on stage today. Times, opinions and sensitivities change.

The existence of homosexuals and cross-dressers is also of dubious relevance. Of course audiences of all times have been aware of (and at different times have reacted in different ways to) the existence of sexual variance. One of the interesting things about the great days of the male impersonator is that they hardly ever exhibited the faintest trace of what you call the 'butch'. Vesta Tilley, for example, looked great in male evening dress, but she remained a desirable woman.

We could go on debating this for a long time (as some American academics boringly do) but it is all really a digression. What brought me into the thread was the idea that the song in question contained references to homosexuality. As a fact-centred historian of the music
hall my reaction was and remains 'nonsense'.

If Champion's 'Any Old Iron' contains a subtext (put there by his songwriters, presumably), whatever are we going to find in his 'Hot Meat Pies, Saveloys and Trotters', 'Henery the Eighth', 'When the Old Dun Cow Burnt Down','Standard Bread' or Let's Have A Basin of Soup'?

There are some moments in Champion's songs that audiences would certainly have found suggestive - 'a bit naughty', as my mother would have said - (like 'Cover it Over Quick Jemima'or the lines about 'Your old woman and the tripe shop man' in 'You Can't Help Laughing') but they were not in any sort of code. A degree in polari might possibly increase enjoyment of Julian and Sandy's outrageously funny stuff, but for Harry C all you need is an understanding of basic London English.

Oh, and the answer to your rather direct question is that I am an old curmudgeon, born in 1928, who went to the variety halls (not too willingly, as a young lad - I preferred the pictures) during their decline in the late 1930s to their dismal end in the 1950s. The first songs I remember being sung at home were, naturally enough, music hall songs. None of this gives me any special status, but you did ask.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 31 May 05 - 04:48 PM

Thanks for the reply Billy. It is a pleasure to hear from someone that will disagree in a civilised and informed manner. Sadly I'm afraid too much of the input on this site gets offensive when people don't see things in quite the same light.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that it would be useless to go on and on but I do feel that things were not quite so puritanical as you say bearing in mind the origins of the Music Hall genre. From my understanding things were sometimes a litle rough in the early days with food and drink served inside the halls and the local "girls" parading around in the auditorium. Even if risque material wasn't performed openly I'm sure that there would always be the temptation to try and slip something by the management. Again I know that it was way past the Music Hall era but I am sure that you were aware of how the Goon Show performers used to do this with characters such as Hugh Jambton and then of course there was the children's programme Captain Pugwash which featured several characters among the crew with somewhat questionable names.
Whichever way you look at it Harry Champion and his fellow artistes were certainly very entertaining risque or not.

Hoot

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Billy Weeks
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 09:20 AM

Hoot, I think you and I would find a great deal more to agree than to disagree about. What delights me, you know, is how these songs go on pleasing people who were born long after the last music halls closed!

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 05:57 PM

Without necessarily endorsing (or otherwise) the opinion of the writer, I am sure the newspaper article claiming "Any Old Iron" had a homosexual sub-text was the (British) Guardian daily newspaper (originally the Manchester Guardian as that I think was where it was first published). I must have seen this on the Internet as I do not buy the paper. I think I have also since independently read that green ties were associated with male homosexuals.

Hootenanny mentions the "questionable" names used in Captain Pugwash, the children's TV Cartoon of the 1960s. These were apparently "Master Bates" and "Seaman Staines" but I am pretty sure that I have read that these were never used in the TV version and that this is a myth, though someone may have claimed thia or there may have been a spoof version in some mucky rag like Viz (this is a guess). They are a bit obvious! However if you know better, let us know.

On the other hand these days camp TV comic Julian Clary can get away with jokes like "Plymouth is full of discharged Seamen" on BBC Radio's "Just a Minute" or "I was enjoying a sweaty tramp in the woods" but this is presumably after the so-called "watershed".

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:33 PM

That rumour about Pugwash is a modern myth with no basis in truth. It comes up regularly and will probably continue to do so, since people rarely bother to check their facts. The Guardian once repeated it, and got a stern letter from John Ryan. They retracted. See, for example, Urban legends: Pugwash.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 07:49 PM

Thanks for putting the record straight. The first I heard of the naughty name rumour was at a table quiz, when the quizmaster asked a question something like "What TV Cartoon featured Seaman Staines and Master Bates" (or vice-versa). I can't remember whether our team got this right (I was aware of Captain Pugwash of course), but were certainly sceptical that such names would be used even today in a children's program.

(I don't remember "Roger the Cabin Boy", although Pirate ships flew the Jolly Roger flag of course). If I remember right, Pugwash's ship was called the Black Pig.

There was a Captain Baines in the Onedin Line, who may have got promoted to Master eventually. Perhaps someone misheard "Master Baines".

I remember seeing "Points of View, a now I believe defunct short 5 or 10 minute program on BBC on which viewers letters, whether laudatory or critical, were read out in whole or part, with comment by the presenter and sometimes by a BBC spokesman; various people including Barry Took and Anne Robinson used to present it.

Anyway, I remember one program many years ago when someone asked if Captain Pugwash had finally sailed for the last time (or some other probably nautical analogy) and the answer was basically Yes, he would no longer be seen. Howver if I rememeber right the series was briefly revived some years later but didn't last long. A child of the early days of mass TV (in black and white) it was bound to look dated and amateurish beside the modern day slick American professionalism of the Simpsons, South Park, etc; even the Magic Roundabout and the Wombles (though not cartoons) would have more "Street Cred".

I don't think Points of View has been on TV for years and indeed apart from Channel 4's "Right to Reply" which is longer and less light-hearted, there seems to be no TV forum for the public to comment on British TV programs (presumably you now just E-mail the websites of the TV companies).

Back to Pugwash; does anyone know the proper name (or any alternative names) of the theme tune (the best thing about it)? The same tune also appears as an instrumental on a Fairport Convention Album (I think "Babbacombe Lee") and I also have it on an LP by the late Jimmy Shand. I used to think it was called "Harvest Home" but I think this may be wrong.

I once started to play a tape of the (Jimmy Shand) song to someone who used to work with me (a Cockney probably born in the late 1940s or early 1950s) and asked him if he recognised it. He got it after about 2 or 3 bars! So despite what I have said about the amateurishness, clearly Pugwash was a massive cultural icon in the early 1960s in what was then Swinging London, the Cultural Capital of the World.

Next: Captain Pugwash: his influence on the Beatles, Bob Dylan, etc.

Isn't or wasn't there a Pugwash conference (on world poverty, disarmament or something). It would be deliciously ironic if this were named after Captain Pugwash who was clearly a villainous robber and pirate, often brandishing his sword & pistol to relieve honest hardworking men of their money and goods, etc, and concerned only to amass wealth (though I suppose amassing wealth is one way of relieving poverty on an individual basis).

Bit of thread drift here, from "Any Old Iron" to "Captain Pugwash". Come to think of it there were never any females in Pugwash - it makes you wonder about him? The black beard may have been a bluff.

Perhaps he metamorphosed into Captain Birdseye, an even more suspicious character who seemed to be surrounded entirely by young boys. I think Birdseye no longer feature him in their TV ads for fish fingers, perhaps due to the anti-paedophile hysteria. And good riddance, I say (both to CB and fish fingers)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 08:30 PM

Pugwash didn't wear a full beard (that was Cut-Throat Jake); just a moustache and an underachieving goatee.

The tune is The Trumpet Hornpipe. The first Pugwash series (1957) used a BBC sound archive recording by button accordion player Tom Edmondson of Harbottle, Northumberland; he had learned the tune -with the distinctive descending bass line in the B part- from Jimmy Shand's band, though Shand himself didn't record it till later. In 1973, Pugwash became an independent production, and Johnny Pearson recorded a new version of the tune, closely modelled on the old one. See Wilf Darlington, 'The Trumpet Hornpipe', in Folk Music Journal, vol 6, no 3, 1992, 276-298, for detail. John Ryan drew a special picture for the cover, featuring Pugwash and Tom (not Roger) the cabin boy. A small picture of it can be seen at http://fmj.efdss.org/contents/fmj/volume_6/contents_3.htm.

In recent years, Pugwash re-appeared; fully animated with 3D seascapes and ships, plus suitable new female and black characters. Maybe a little over-sophisticated for those of us who grew up with the old stop-motion cardboard cutouts, but still good fun.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 08:54 PM

Come to think of it, I think I was under the impression it was called "The Trumpet Hornpipe" except that I think there is a tune called that name in the CD-ROM available from (?Rod Smith) at www.traditonalmusic.co.uk (the best £15 or so I ever spent as it contains many hundreds of tunes, lyrics, notes and music, etc) but it is clearly a different tune. I will check this out.

Sorry about the mistake over the beard, etc; it must have been Cut Throat Jake.

Why is Jake so rarely used for John instead of Jack these days (I only ever met one Jake, many years ago). Although apparently Jack derives from the Latin "Jacobus" (for "James") and so should reasly be used for "Jim" or "Jimmy" rather than as a pet name for John.

I remember reading a year or two back that "Jack" was the most popular boys name these days; a bit hard to believe in its pure form, though John may well still be the most popular.

Probably its lack of sleep causing all this thread creep as it is 1.51 am and I had better get to bed (though I am on a fortnight's, or rather 17 day, holiday!).

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 09:23 PM

I'm afraid that cd contains all sorts of mistakes and wrong information. Most of the material was simply copied from other people's websites (including this one), often without the accompanying background, source details and so on; and, apparently, with little or no effort made to check anything. It's probably very useful for folk who want basic raw material and don't much care where it came from, but to my mind it was made with a complete lack of respect both for the music and songs, and for the people who kept them alive for us, whether by playing, singing, "collecting", or publishing them.

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST,gentleman geez'
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 07:04 PM

sorry this got nuffina doo wit wot u 2z is sayin but, I just love the way u talk lol.no serious! ..I had a mate once who could talk in a posh & very civilised manner & with the distinctive accent aswell.. woz well funny!! i luv it!! lol

1 blud

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From:
Date: 03 May 06 - 04:35 AM

Does anyone know how to contact Steve Crump, grandson of Harry Champion (William Crump)?

It happens that my grandmother was a Crump from Hoxton, so I am pursuing a family connection.

Ed Emery

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:18 PM

heyyyyyyyyyyy i roc wooooo yea i do... go me, go me, go me....
MWA xxxx

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 May 06 - 11:19 PM

u kno i do :)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: Any old iron?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Sep 07 - 04:03 PM

who sang it