Manny Aldous (Suffolk)

(photo: courtesy of Mrs Aldous)

        Manny is one of the few singers I have recorded who almost discovered himself. At least, a phone call from his daughter-in-law, who had heard of my folk-song collecting activities, put me on his trail and a meeting was arranged at her house in Needham Market.
        Maurice Sidney Aldous was born at Lower Farm, Offton in 1906 and after leaving school at 12 he had many jobs including working on farms, on the roads and in the local tannery, iron foundry and sugar beet factory, finally working in the kitchens at RAF Wattisham.
        Like many singers who had sung all their lives, Manny was a song collector himself. He told me, "When I was right young, when I used to go to Offton Limeburners, 'Hay' Plummer was there, he sang, The Sages from Somersham, they also had lots of songs and they played accordeons there. You used to get a lot of old boys and they used to sing one against the other. That's where I got a lot of my old songs."
        Another pub he visited frequently was Whatfield Horseshoes. "I used to sing in the Horseshoes. There was a man named Thorpe there then. Before the war that was. As soon as I got in the pub the old landlord would say "We'll have a song tonight. There's a pint as soon as you sing a song! The old stagers they used to really love those old songs. In fact in that time, them that couldn't sing in the old pub, they'd pass around a hat and they'd have to put something in. I never had to put anything in!"
        Manny told me that he had a list of song headings in a little red book which he used as a reminder. He had unfortunately mislaid it and I only had the chance to meet him three times before he died in 1988. I am pleased I was able to record some of Manny's songs so they will not be lost.  (John Howson)

Manny Aldous can be heard on: VTC2CD & VTC3CD

Norman Alford (Cumberland)

    (photo courtsey of David Hay)

(Norman Alford on the left)

        Born at Low Hesket, south of Carlisle, Norman and Robert Forrester were friends from boyhood and were apprentices together in an art studio in Carlisle before going to the local art school to study painting. Norman joined the army as an artillery officer during the Second World War and was wounded in Normandy. After the war he and Robert Forrester got together again, biking around the countryside, fishing, drawing and painting, and hunting out singers and songs in the many pubs they fetched up in. Gauging the right moment to take up their instruments, playing quietly at first, until the old men chose to join in: according to Forrester "Norman had a nose like a bloodhound. He would whisper to me "I think we'll be reet tonight." In the recordings he plays the tin whistle on a number of tracks. Tragically, Norman died of leukaemia in 1954 aged only 39. (Sue Allen)

Norman Alford can be heard on: VT142CD

Clifford Arbon (Suffolk)

 (photo: John Howson)

      Clifford Arbon was born in 1908. I first heard of him when singer Tony Harvey rang to tell me of an old boy who had turned up at one of the regular Tuesday night music sessions at the Earl Soham Victoria. He'd sung a couple of comic songs and really impressed and amused everybody there. Tony had found out his name for me and off I went on his trail, to the remote village of Monewden. Clifford was in fact well known in the area, and not just for his singing and starring role in the film 'Akenfield', but because he was the local wheelwright for most of his life: an important job when most of the traffic on Suffolk lanes was horse-drawn. His workshop was still intact, complete with the tools he had used for many years, situated at the bottom of his cottage garden: the cottage he had lived in since he was two. As Clifford said, "I was born just the other side of this garden so I haven't moved far in my life, have I?"
        In his early days he was a keen melodeon player and played in many pubs in the area, including Ashfield Swan where he met up with the renowned Alf Peachey. "Cor! he could play. A champion."
        He learned several songs around the pubs in those days, and he also learned several for village concerts, which were an important feature of the village year. It was often the comic songs which appealed most at such events. (John Howson)

Clifford Arbon can be heard on: VTC3CD & VTDC11CD

Reg Bacon (Essex)

(photo courtsey of Neil Lanham)

Reg was said to be about 68 when he was recorded in 1959, so he was born around 1890. The family originally lived at Redoaks Hill, Essex and his father Elijah played the fiddle. They then moved to Radwinter, near Saffron Waldon, Essex where Reg lived in Water Lane until his death.

He was always known as a true countryman who was very proud of his garden, offering vegetables to anyone who visited him. He sang in the Plough in Radwinter and was always a popular character there. His songs had come from many sources but those from the Music Hall probably came via gramophone records, and there are family memories of him playing records over and over again to learn the words and then going down to the pub to sing his new song to the gathered crowd. Apart from Sam Steele, other collectors also visited Reg,including Russell Wortley and Neil Lanham.

Reg Bacon can be heard on: VT150CD

Bampton Traditional Morris Dances (Oxfordshire)

  (photo: John Howson)

        Bampton Morris Dancers are one of the few sides who have an unbroken tradition of dancing, which they can trace back for hundreds of years. Members of the team still have to live in the village to be able to dance. When this recording was made the squire of the morris was Francis Shergold who had taken over after the death of their renowned fiddle player ‘Jinky’ Wells. Francis has now retired himself and has been made the honorary president of the team. The present squire is Tony Daniels who comes from another family of dancers within the village. The musician on the recording is in fact Francis' nephew, Jamie Wheeler. (John Howson)

Bampton Traditional Morris Dancers can be heard on: VTC1CD & VTC4CD

and archive recordings of Bampton Morris can be heard on TSCD66 & TSCD657
 

Cyril Barber (Suffolk)

  (photo: John Howson)

        Cyril was born into a large family in 1922 and his three brothers Sonny, Rip and Royal all played, danced and sang. The eldest brother, Sonny, was first to have an accordeon. As Cyril said, "When he was out of the way we'd all steal a tune on his music." Many of Cyril's songs he grew up with, as both his mother and father sang. The family home was Wingfield and it was around that area he first started to sing, play and stepdance. He told me, "Yes there was a lot of singing in the pubs around Wingfield. There was one old man who lived to be a hundred and he used to sing about 'shot and shell flying across the battle field' from the 1914 war. The folk used to sit there and tears came into their eyes."
        He would often keep company with the Whiting family, "Old Charlie Whiting, he could dance and sing a song!" and favourite pubs in those days would have been the Hoxne Swan and the Ivy House at Stradbroke.
        Cyril worked mainly on the land and he moved around quite a lot to find farm work, including a period in Cambridgeshire. In the sixties he moved to Felsham and worked for the council before retirement. In these later years he had almost stopped playing and singing: "Nobody wanted to hear those old songs any more" he told me. I'm pleased to say that many people are still interested in the old music and Cyril is always pleased to oblige with a tune, a step or a song.  (John Howson)

Cyril Barber can be heard on: VTC2CD VTC3CD VT130CD OH1CD & VTDC11CD 

Sonny Barber (Norfolk /Suffolk)

  (photo: John Howson)

        Sonny was born in 1908 in Wingfield, Suffolk but moved to Briningham, Norfolk in 1950. He was the oldest brother of Cyril Barber who is also featured in this collection. His was a musical family with mouthorgans and melodeons being the chosen instruments and their father had a host of old songs, some of which Sonny learned. Apart from picking up tunes from other musicians he met in local pubs, he also had an old gramophone and learned jigs and hornpipes from 78 rpm records. When he moved to Norfolk he soon met up with other local melodeon players like Pat Chesney and Billy Smith as well as stepdancer Dick Hewitt from Melton Constable. He said the The Hastings Arms in Melton Constable was a regular haunt for music and stepdancing until they put in a juke box.

Sonny Barber can be heard on: VTDC11CD 

Mark Bazeley (Devon)

(Mark with Bob Cann - photo:John Howson)   

(photo: Maggie Hunt)

        Mark Bazley is the grandson of the one of England's greatest melodeon players, Bob Cann. He grew up with his grandfather love of their native Dartmoor in Devon and with his encouragement to the play the concertina and melodeon and Mark became the fifth generation of family players. In 1988 when Mark was just 15 he recorded many tunes with Bob which can be heard on VT138CD.

        Apart from a large family repertoire Mark has continued to learn new tunes and in recent years has teamed up with accordion player Jason Rice, himself the grandson of another Dartmoor legend Jack Rice. They along with banjo player Rob Murch now lead the Dartmoor Pixie Band who play village halls all over their region. And increasingly the three 'lads' venture to venues all over the country gaining them a well deserved national reputation for their own traditional music led by Mark's powerful melodeon playing. (John Howson)

Mark Bazeley can be heard on: VTC1CD VTC4CD VT138CD VT139CD VT144CD  VT146CD & CDMM001

Billy Bennington (Norfolk)

 (photo: John Howson)

        Born in Norfolk in 1900, Billy spent most of his life as a gardener. His father kept the King's Head public house at Barford and it was he who gave Billy his first dulcimer. In 1912 he went to Hingham show and Billy Cooper was playing dulcimer there. Cooper's father was the bandmaster of the Hingham and Watton band, and Billy Bennington took lessons from him. 'Old Cooper's' rigid discipline made Billy practise hard.
        After the First World War, Billy Bennington teamed up with Billy Cooper and they played in Barford King's Head. It was there they joined up with fiddle player Walter Bulmer. On Saturday nights they would play in village pubs all over Norfolk, travelling around on a motorbike combination which had a basket on the front, where they would carry the two dulcimers and the fiddle. Later, Billy played with a banjo player and he busked at Great Yarmouth, which he described as "the best paid game going!" After the war he entered a national talent competition and reached the eastern region final. Unfortunately, he caught a hammer on a bridge and it landed in a judge's lap, thus preventing him winning! (John Howson)

Billy Bennington can be heard on: VTC4CD & VTVS07/08

and can be seen on: EFDSS VID2

Bob Blake (Sussex)

   (photo: Mike Yates)

        Bob was born in Tooting, south London, in 1908. Holiday visits to an uncle in Gloucestershire soon made Bob realise that he preferred the countryside to the city and he moved to the area around Horsham in Sussex when he was nineteen. He began working as a coach trimmer in a garage before he was able to work as a farm labourer and a gardener. Later he became a bee-keeper, with hives in Sussex and the New Forest.
        During the 1930's Bob began to spent his holidays cycling throughout southern England, picking up songs and tunes - he also played the fiddle - whenever he could. A quiet, thoughtful man, he sang mainly for his own pleasure (and, no doubt, for the pleasure of his bees!) although he did sometimes visit local folk clubs in company with Bob Copper, Bob Lewis and other Sussex singers. (Mike Yates)

Bob Blake can be heard on: VTC4CD & MTCD311-2
 

David Blick (Gloucestershire)

        The Roy Palmer book 'What a Lovely War' (Michael Joseph 1990) aimed to show the songs that were actually sung in the forces during war time and he collected songs from ex-service men and women to include in the book. David Blick was one of his sources. He lived in Newent, Gloucestershire and served in the REME in Germany in the late 1950s. (John Howson)

Bob Blake can be heard on: VTC1CD

George Bregenzer (London)
 

      George came from a Shoreditch family. He learned a number of songs before 1939 from a friend who was a T.A. member of the Royal Engineers. So, curiously, George took them into the army with him when he was called up. A tape he sent me (now in the British Library National Sound Archive) contains The Codfish, Hurrah for the CRE, a couple of fragments: A Soldier and a Sailor and I'm the Ghost of John James Christopher Bing plus two songs George learned in the 1920s, Maidstone Football Song and Vote, Vote, Vote. (Roy Palmer)

George Bregenzer can be heard on: VTC6CD

Charlie Bridger (Kent)

(photo courtsey of Andy Turner)

        I was taken to meet Charlie in Kent by Andy Turner, a good singer in his own right. We recorded a number of songs from Charlie, including 'The Birds Upon the Tree', 'Little By Little', 'The Folkestone Murder' and 'The Zulu Wars'. Charlie had worked for most of his life in a near-by stone-quarry and had picked up his songs from his parents and work mates. (Mike Yates)

Charlie Bridger can be heard on: VTC4CD  VTC6CD

Jumbo Brightwell (Suffolk)

  (photo: Mike Yates)

         William ‘Jumbo’ Brightwell was one of Velvet’s eleven children, born in 1900 in Little Glemham. It was there he met an old sailor called Jumbo Poacher from whom he got his nickname. After the war in 1919 he returned to Leiston where he worked as a bricklayer’s labourer and then eventually started at Garrett’s and served twenty years as a shunter before retirement. He rarely missed a Saturday night in the 'Foot', where he would go with his father and brother, Bob. He learned his songs from local and visiting singers as well as, of course, from his father Velvet, although he told Keith Summers that 'The False Hearted Knight' came from his mother. E J Moeran seemed to think that Jumbo was not allowed to sing ‘out’ until he was fifty, but local thinking is that this was a wind-up and many remember him singing as a young man in the pub. He was also a champion quoits player and he would hear songs when playing at other pubs in the area. There is some confusion about the 1939 recordings as the BBC credited 'Pleasant and Delightful' and 'The Indian Lass' as being sung by him while it is clear that it is actually Velvet singing. Also, Jumbo does not appear on any of the 1939/40 photographs. Jumbo had a vast repertoire of songs and his wife Cathy (whom he married late in life) talked about a large book of songs of which he knew every one. He was visited and recorded by several collectors over the years, including Peter Kennedy in the 1950s, Neil Lanham in the 1960s, and Keith Summers and Tony Engle (Topic Records) in the 1970s. (John Howson)

Jumbo Brightwell can be heard on: VT140CD  VT154CD TSCD652   TSCD653  TSCD660  TSCD662  TSCD664   TSCD670  &  RCD1741

Velvet Brightwell (Suffolk)

(photo courtsey of Keith Summers)

         William ‘Velvet’ Brightwell was born 1865 in Little Glemham, he went to sea for a year or two in his early days but moved the family to Carrs Cottages then Archway Cottage, Leiston, in 1916 and worked as a plate-layer on the railway. He was a well educated man compared to his colleagues and could read and write very well, soon becoming foreman. He told Peter Kennedy that he had done forty-eight years and ten months ‘on the line’. He got his nickname of Velvet because of the velvet waistcoat and suit he favoured. He was a member of the ‘Royal Order of the Buffaloes’ and it was at their meetings that he enjoyed singing. He had a large repertoire of songs, was a regular at the Eel’s Foot, and at the centre of the 1930s recordings. Apart from these BBC recordings, the only others seem to be those he made at the age of 91 by Peter Kennedy in 1956 when he sang "Scarboro", "The Faithful Plough", "The Foggy Dew" and (learned from his father Robert), "The Loss of the Ramillies". Velvet died at the age of 95 in 1960. (John Howson)

Velvet Brightwell can be heard on: VT140CD
 

Tom Brodie (Cumberland)

(photo courtesy David Hay)

        Tom "Copper" Brodie, born at Cargo, near Carlisle, in 1906, sang 'The Birds Upon the Trees'. He was a fisherman and later a water bailiff on the rivers around Carlisle, until his retirement in the late 1960s. He learned from one Jack Hind of Rockliffe, another great fisherman. (Sue Allen)

Top Brodie can be heard on: VT142CD
 

Percy Brown (Norfolk)

  (photo: Dave Arthur)

        Percy, a one-time woodman, chimney sweep and level-crossing keeper, had a large repertoire of song tunes, stepdances, polkas and other dance tunes and hymns. It was a hymn 'Here we suffer grief and pain', which Percy first learned to play as a small boy alongside his mother on an old single-row, four stop 'music', which he later discarded for his two-row Hohner melodeons. Percy always said that he liked 'to find the corners of a tune'. In common with the vast majority of traditional musicians, he learned all his music by ear and felt that written music 'flattened out the tune'. (Dave Arthur)

Percy Brown can be heard on: VTC5CD  VT150CD VTDC11CD TSCD659 & TSCD664
 

Alec Bloomfield (Suffolk)

(photo courtsey of Keith Summers)

        Alec was a tall man who worked as a gamekeeper. He lived in Westleton, then Benhall and then moved away to Nottingham. He became a favourite singer at the 'Eel's Foot' at Eastbridge, and a story that is still in circulation recalls the night when some ‘boys’ from Leiston were in the pub and landlady Mrs Morling couldn’t get them to leave. Alec was outside and she explained the problem. He went in, rolled up his sleeves and said, “Now who’s going to leave by the door and who’s going to leave by the window!” He was also recorded by Peter Kennedy in 1950 when he sang 'The Old Couple in the Wood', 'Stand You Up', 'The Old Mole Catcher', 'Burlington Fair', 'The Poor Little Soldier’s Boy', 'Bold General Wolfe', 'The Highwayman Outwitted', and 'The Ship that never Returned', Kennedy also recorded him for the BBC at Benhall in 1952, when he sang 'The Foggy Dew', 'The Cunning Cobbler', 'The Wild Rover', 'Young George Oxbury' (which came from his father, George). (John Howson)

Alec Bloomfield can be heard on:  VT140CD & VT154CD

Charlie Buller (Norfolk)

  (photo: John Howson)

        Charlie was born and lived all his life in Erpingham, Norfolk. Growing up in the heart of a melodeon playing area he reckoned every village would have someone who could play one and he could rattle off a list of local players: Ernie Barstead, Percy Davidson, George Sandle, one called Wickmere and one called Scarfe. Then there was the highly regarded players like Albert Hewitt and Percy Brown. Charlie and his brother-in-law played together and they bought matching melodeons to take around the local pubs. He also travelled out on a Saturday night with an old singer called Billy Cook who would sing in every pub they visted, like Trimingham Crown & Anchor, Mundesley Ship and Bacton Duke of York. Other outings ended in Cromer where he would play for the fishemen to stepdance and he reckoned Dick Davies was the best. In village halls in his locality he would also play for the Long Dance and other old dances like the Veleta, ‘The Boston Two-Step’ and the old Schottische.
 

Sonny Barber can be heard on: VTDC11CD 

Walter & Daisy Bulwer (Norfolk)

(photo courtesy of  Reg Hall)

        Walter Bulwer was born in 1888 in Shipdham, Norfolk and following an apprenticeship he worked as a self-employed tailor. He also cut hair and was well known for his taxidermy! His father played the fiddle and Walter was taught to read music at the age of four and played violin, viola, cello, piccolo, clarinet, tin whistle, trombone, mandolin and drums.

        He became heavily involved in the musical life of Shipdham and was a member of various bands. He also played in all the pubs in the village, sometimes with another fiddler called Brown. From an early age Walterpreferred to play by ear and enjoyed improvising and playing second parts.

        He liked to have piano accompaniment and when he met and married Daisy Hart, who was from the neighbouring village of Bradenham, she accompanied him on the piano. Over a period of forty years they played for hundreds of weddings in their locality. In later years they mainly played at home and it was there that Mervyn Plunkett and Reg Hall took Bill Leader to record them in the 1960s. Those and other earlier recordings made by Mervyn Plunkett and Paul Carter can now be heard on TSCD607 ‘English Country Music’ and VT150CD 'Heel & Toe'
 

Edgar Button (Suffolk)

(photo courtesy of  Keith Summers)

        Edgar came from Middleton and then lived in Theberton and was a regular at the 'Eel’s Foot', Eastbridge. He was a strong singer and was recorded by Peter Kennedy in 1956 when he sang 'Blow the Candle Out', 'The Oak and the Ash', 'The Larks they sang Melodious' and 'The Foggy Dew'. That visit led to Edgar being invited to sing in London, taking the place of Jumbo Brightwell who would not go as he thought that he would be made fun of. Neil Lanham also recorded Edgar when he sang 'Ramble Away', 'Female Cabin Boy' and 'Swinging in the Lane'.  (John Howson)

Edgar Button can be heard on: VT140CD

Jack 'Dot' Button (Suffolk)

  (photo courtesy of Wilf Goddard)

        Lenny Button said that his father could play for hours and knew hundreds of songs. In early life Jack worked in insurance and then as a gardener at Lower Abbey Farm, near Leiston. He had a damaged leg, giving him a limp which accounts for his nickname. One of his daughters was recorded by Keith Summers under her married name of Aline Stollery (Topic 12TS375) and her son Eric recalled that Jack used to wear long leather buskins and ride a high old bike with his walking stick tied to the cross bar with a pair of boot laces and his accordeon on the back. He died in1955 aged 83. (John Howson)

Jack Button can be heard on: VT140CD

Packie Byrne (Co.Donegal)

  (photo: Brian Shuel)  

(photo: Doc Rowe)

        Packie Manus Byrne was born on 17th February, 1917, on a farm in Cockermore near Ardara, County Donegal. “Aye”, says Packie, “I was born in the heart’s blood of the mountain, seven miles from the nearest village or town.” He was the youngest of four children.... “We’d to walk four miles over the mountain to get to school, and my feet didn’t see a pair of shoes till I was nine!” The farm was one of few in a small community of Gaelic-speaking tenant farmers on land ravaged by brutal winters. “If they’d squeezed the water out of our land we’d have but ten acres out of thirty.”

        Music was the main form of entertainment wherever people gathered together. “Well, there was little else to do to keep you out of trouble. I remember going away over to my sister’s farm to see the cattle. I took Charlie Waters with me expecting to be but an hour or two. We were holed up for four days in a deserted house 'till I had every damn song he ever knew, and vice versa!”
        Packie’s life was filled with the songs and stories of those around him. His mother was a fine singer, as was Gran-Uncle Pat and Gran-Aunt ‘Big’ Bridget Sweeny. Every household had a musician in those days and there’d be a sooty, blackened fiddle hanging on the flag across the wall over the hearth. Packie’s father, Con Byrne was a matchmaker and would often be called across the mountains to discuss the merits of a suitable woman over a drink. “He was bred into compulsive talking and could always persuade any listener of the virtues of a particular wife: ‘That woman’d take music out of a fresh loaf!’ he’d say.” He was himself a fine singer though he preferred comedy songs and supplied plenty of comic material for Packie’s stories. He gave Packie many songs, amongst them a marathon with twenty four verses to it that Packie had once sung as slowly as he could while his dad was waiting to get away to a Poteen gathering, until he leapt up saying, “That’s not a song, that’s a bloody endurance test!” (John Howson)

Packie Byrne can be heard on: VT132CD TSCD653 TSCD656 & TSCD667

The Cantwell Family (Oxfordshire)

The Oxfordshire family the Cantwells came from the village of Standlake and were well known locally for their singing. Raymond and Frederick Cantwell were recorded by Peter Kennedy in 1956 when Frederick was 73 years old and a recording of them can be heard on RCD1778 ‘Songs of Seduction’. The next generation, John and Aurbrey Cantwell, have continued the family tradition and Gwilym Davies recorded John in the 1970s. (John Howson)

The Cantwell Family can be heard on: VTC7CD

Chagford Merrymakers (Devon)
 

  (photo courtesy of Ruth Askew)

(photo courtesy of Ruth Askew)

        Chagford is a small Devon  town on the edge of Dartmoor. Each year, in common with many other rural towns around the country,  they had a carnival. Originally known as a Jazz Band, the carnival was the reason  for the creation of the Merrymakers after the second world war. Peter Kennedy recorded them in the 1950s. Two of the key player were Jack and Les Rice, playing along side other local musicians like Ruth Askew, George Allen and Bob Cann. In  the 1980s a revival of the the Merrymakers took place with several of the original members including the Rice brothers. (John Howson)

The new Merrymakers can be heard on: VT144CD

Bob Cann (Devon)

  (photo courtesy of Mark Bazeley)

  (photo courtesy of Mark Bazeley)

        Bob Cann's Dartmoor family is one of the few in England whose music making tradition spans five generations. He was always keen that one of family continued their musical tradition and when his grandson was ready he wanted them to be recorded together. At the time Bob was seventy one and his grandson, Mark Bazeley just fifteen years old. Mark continues to foster the family traditions and he now leads the country dance band Bob formed, the Dartmoor Pixies. (John Howson)

Bob Cann can be heard on:  VTC1CD  VTC4CD  VTC9CD  VT138CD  VT144CD  TSCD657  &  TSCD659

James Carty (London)

(photo: John Howson)

        James Carty is the son of one of the stalwarts of the London Irish music scene, flute player John Carty.  James is one of those rare musicians born in London, who feels strongly about home in Ireland and who feels equally strongly about the old-style traditional music. Born in Whitechapel in the East End of London in 1969, he has the strongest of attachments to his father's home in Knockroe near Boyle, Co. Roscommon, where his brother John now lives, and his mother's place in Rosrue, Cashel, Connemara, Co. Galway. As a child he was brought up with the sound of his father and his elder brother John playing the flute and banjo at home, but he reckons he only began to take notice when he was about seven. He had a few tin whistle lessons at Brendan Mulkere's class in Whitechapel, and then he gave up playing for years, though as a teenage he hung about where the music was played. At twenty-three, at a significant point in his life the day after his mother died - Gregory Daly gave him a boxwood flute - a bag of gold dust - and, like many sons of flute players, he worked out how to play on his own. About seven years ago, he was taken down to the Crescent, and it was Joe Whelan and Liam Farrell who really got him going and had him playing there regularly for a couple of years.  James plays every Sunday in one of London's finest Irish music session at the Auld Triangle, Finsbury Park. (Reg Hall)

James Carty can be heard on: VT141CD

Harry Chambers (Suffolk)

(photo: John Howson)

        Although born in Laxfield, Harry Chambers is a Dennington man, having lived in the parish for over fifty years, where he worked on various farms before retirement. He actually lived in Owl's Green (which is a couple of miles from the centre of the village) not far from the famed melodeon player, Dolly Curtis's old cottage, and the Dennington Bell pub. Years ago, in most rural singing pubs, not everyone had a vast repertoire of songs but many of the company would have a couple of items ready in case they were called upon. Harry filled this role well with his classic drinking toast ' The Barley Mow' which was often used to end an evening. He told me that he learned the song "a lot of years ago at a farm worker's Union meeting held at Saxmundham.” (John Howson)

Harry Chambers can be heard on: VTC2CD

Ted Chaplin (Suffolk)

  (photo source unknown)

        Ted was born in Eye but then made his home in various parts of the county. After living in Cranley Green he spent thirty years in the Henley and Barsham area, where he worked as a horseman and then as a farm manager. His next move was to Bacton, where he operated a coal business for twenty years, followed by a couple of years in Mendlesham and four in Wingfield. He finally settled in Mellis, although he didn't stop working as he spent a lot of his time at Tony Harvey's stables. From there he drove parties of vistors around the lanes in a horse-drawn carriage to sample a couple of hostelries and then back to Tannington for a meal.

        Ted sang a lot in his younger days, as he told me, " Well we used to get down to old Redlingfield Crown; what else was there to do? There was an old boy there used to come and play the accordeon: Wallie Harpie. He weren't an expert at it but he'd play a tune or two, but one night his boss came in and we said, 'Come on Wallie, strike up!' but he wouldn't play in front of him so that's when we started singing a song or two. The first song I ever sung in there was 'Nellie Dean', and I haven't sung it since. Then I moved over to Henley and got in with a chap there, worked at Cobbold's brewery, and I used to go about with him, down in Ipswich and about. Then village pubs we'd go sing a song in, like Coddenham Duke, Coddenham Crown and I suppose Henley Cross Keys was the main pub where we were known.

        There used to be an old boy, Herbert Page used to get in there with a fiddle and he'd sit in a corner, and rasp away. Well he couldn't play and I'd encourage him and everyone there would curse me. 'Play up Herbert: that's beautiful!' I'd say. Now I was in Swilland Half Moon and two chaps came in and sang several funny songs and the next night I went into Coddenham Duke and I sang those songs!"

        Ted's singing career then lapsed for thirty years, and I was fortunate enough to meet him just as he was starting again. That was in Brundish Crown: somebody said, 'Old Ted'll give you a song!' Up he got and gave us. 'The fellow that played the trombone' and he never looked back. (John Howson)

Ted Chaplin can be heard on:  VTC2CD  VTC3CD  VTC7CD & OH1CD

Jack Clark (Suffolk)

(photo courtesy of Eileen Morling)

        Jack was a thick set man and over six foot tall. He lived up the ‘Drift’ in Eastbridge and worked as a builder’s labourer, including several years working for Read’s of Aldeburgh. Eric Stollery worked with him and he said, ”Yes big Jack, he’d sing at work, we’d often have a rendering in the shed!” (John Howson)

Jack Clark can be heard on: VT140CD

Charlie Clissold (Gloucestershire)