Lyr Add: A Shropshire Lad (John Betjeman)

Subject: Lyr Add: A SHROPSHIRE LAD (John Betjeman)
From: Paul Burke
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 10:01 AM

All the recent arrhythmia about Betjeman reminded me of this, and it doesn't seem to be in DT or any of the surviving threads, so:

A SHROPSHIRE LAD

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.

The sun shone low on the railway line
And over the bricks and stacks,
And in at the upstairs windows
Of the Dawley houses' backs,
When we saw the ghost of Captain Webb,
Webb in a water sheeting,
Come dripping along in a bathing dress
To the Saturday evening meeting.
Dripping along ?
Dripping along ?
To the Congregational Hall;
Dripping and still he rose over the sill
and faded away in a wall

There wasn't a man in Oakengates
That hadn't got hold of the tale,
And over the valley in Ironbridge,
And round by Coalbrookdale,
How Captain Webb the Dawley man,
Captain Webb from Dawley,
Rose rigid and dead from the old canal
That carries the bricks to Lawley.
Rigid and dead ?
Rigid and dead ?
To the Saturday congregation,
Paying a call at Dawley Bank
on his way to his destination.

The only carp is that Ironbridge is the same side of the valley as Dawley.

---

John Kirkpatrick recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fe9wZvQyWA4

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Captain Webb by John Betjeman
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 10:23 AM

A truly fine poem made into a great song by Jim Parker?. Excellent version by J & S Kirkpatrick I believe.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Captain Webb by John Betjeman
From: Mick Pearce (MCP)
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 01:13 PM

There was a thread on this Captain Webb the swimmer with external links to the poem, both of which appear to be dead now.

Mick

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Captain Webb by John Betjeman
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 01:35 PM

He used to appear on boxes of matches when I were a lad!
G.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Captain Webb by John Betjeman
From: Fliss
Date: 29 Aug 06 - 05:10 PM

Came swimming along the old canal
That carried the bricks to Lawley.

Only there wasnt a canal there so Im informed.

http://www.kategreen.org.uk/Captain%20Webb.htm

lovely line drawing of the Capt.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Captain Webb by John Betjeman
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 03:52 AM

There were several canals in the area. The Donnington Wood canal, the Ketley canal, the Shropshire canal. There was a ramifying network of branches from all of these, and the mainline of the Shropshire canal ran midway between Dawley Bank and Lawley. Part of it was later rebuilt as a railway (the GWR Coalport branch). This happened before Webb died swimming Niagara Falls, but substantial traces remained in the area until the great rebuilding of the 1970s. So Webb's ghost perhaps swam along the ghost of a canal- and Betjeman's acute observation is vindicated!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Captain Webb by John Betjeman
From: Trevor
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 06:27 AM

The only other groan is the appalling accent that JB used on the otherwise lovely recording with the brass band. He said he thought it was midlands!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Captain Webb by John Betjeman
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 06:36 AM

He knew it was a very bad accent, and apologised for it, but said the poem wouldn't have sounded right in his cultivated Home Counties voice.