A great record shop - Coda Music

There aren't many record shops left today, and still fewer which specialise in folk and world music. So it is good news when one such shop seems to be making a success against all the odds. This is Coda on the Mound in Edinburgh which has a huge stock of excellent CDs, books and magazines and where the staff are knowledgable and very helpful.

I could happily spend a lot of time and money here - and I just did so during a short trip to Edinburgh!
I hope the shop continues to be a success so I can go back again for more.

Matthew Edwards

The art of busking badly; "There's brass in codology."

Wilfred Pickles as "Owd Thatcher" in the BBC
Northern Regional radio programme 'Under
the Barber's Pole' written by Tommy Thompson

In 'The Trumpeter', another story from Lancashire Pride, the Lancashire dialect writer Tommy Thompson tells the story of Joe Slater "the highly esteemed cornet player of the Beesham Temperance Silver Band" and his encounter with a pavement artist on the same instrument whose playing puts his teeth on edge. Joe demonstrates to the busker just how the cornet ought to be played, but is then thoroughly disconcerted when the street "hartist" completely outplays him;-

"Ah axed thee afore," said the player. "Han' we getten any brass wi' thi good playin'?"
"Not a sausage," said Joe.
"There's no money in good playin'," said the player. "Thee ax th' Hallé lot."
"There's no money in bad playin' either," said Joe lamely "Is there?"
"There's brass in codology," said the player. "Tha has to get sympathy."
"Tha didn't get mine," said Joe.
"Ah worn't playin' for thee," said the player. "Ah have me own public. Sithee...we'll go up this narrer street an' Ah'll show thee. Thee stop on th' flags."
He went into the middle of the street and blew "Home Sweet Home" as though it was the first time he had heard it. Joe covered his ears with his hands and watched the hat fill with coppers.
"What did Ah tell thee," said the player as he filled his pockets. "Codology! Tha con keep thi art for art's sake. What about slippin' in for a quick un?"
"Ah could do wi' one," said Joe. "Ah'm stunned."

If capitalism is the answer then what was the question?

One of the few pleasures of the current global financial crisis has been the emergence of John Lanchester as a writer on economics. His articles on the topic in the London Review of Books are classics of clear explanatory writing; like Cobbett he uses plain English prose to get to the heart of the matter, so that the reader actually understands it.

He has now written a book Whoops! which is probably one of the best guides to the mysterious world of high finance since J K Galbraith's account of the Wall Street Crash.

His analysis of the economic and political climate in which  the crisis occurred is that with the collapse of Communism the capitalist Western countries no longer had a comparator to demonstrate to their citizens that their model delivered a better way of life. When the Berlin Wall fell the capitalist model stood supreme and unchallengeable.

If anyone dared to suggest 'there must be another  way' the West could reasonably respond; 'Show me.' John Lanchester's book shows quite clearly the consequences of allowing capitalism to go unchallenged and unregulated. He exposes the sloppy thinking behind the belief that a free market regulates itself, as well as the sheer intimidatory power that the market uses to prevent any form of regulation.

Now the West has been forced to embrace a strange sort of social capitalism and take the banks that were Too Big To Fail into various schemes of public ownership. However these act like cuckoos in the nest, greedily requiring so much for their own sustenance that they choke off almost all other forms of public activity. The business of government becomes providing a life support system for business itself, with the bank threatening to die if the system is switched off - and to take the government, and the country with it. However at some point the banks that have been Too Big To Fail are going to become Too Big To Rescue - there simply won't be any resources left to sustain them. What happens then?

What will we do if we have no money?
O true lovers, what will we do then?
O we'll hawk through the town for a hungry crown,
And we'll yodel it over again.
(Mary Delaney's song)

Matthew Edwards

RNID name change

Action on Hearing Loss

I've just received the new issue of the RNID magazine one in seven, which announces the new campaigning name for this charity: Action on Hearing Loss. It is a good change in that it does capture the essense of what the RNID is about, and it is much better than the current confusing set of initials (my bank for example seems to think that I'm paying my membership subscription to the RNIB - but I've checked and despite getting the name wrong they are sending my money to the right place!)

However the new name is still rather a mouthful; I don't know what the other options were but I would have quite liked HearingAid, or DeafAid or even DeafAction. I am not personally a BSL user, but I hope the redesigned logo will find a way to incorporate a stylised combination of the signs for 'deaf' and 'action'.

Anyway there will be an opportunity to comment on proposed changes to the logo, colours and fonts through an online survey open from Monday 18 October to Sunday 29 October at www.rnid.org.uk/brand2.

Matthew

New hearing aid

I've been wearing my new hearing aid since February this year, and I've just been back to my audiologist for a review. I had to report that I've been absolutely delighted with it; it's the best one I've ever used. I hardly ever touch the volume controls any more as the aid is sensitive to the different acoustic environments I go through and adjusts itself automatically. The windblock technology is a special advantage as I can now go walking in the country and up in the hills without having to put up with the wind howling in the microphone; I used to have to switch my old hearing aid off when walking up Snowdon &c because the noise from the wind was just unbearable!
I chose a silver coloured aid this time (it matches my hair!); perhaps next time I'll be bolder and choose a bright primary colour like the ones David Hockney wears. I don't want to hide my deafness by wearing a "discreet" device which nobody can tell is there.
All the same it is amazing how much is packed into such a tiny device; as a child I wore a bulky body aid which I clipped into my shirt pocket and which was connected to the earpiece by a long wire. I hated the rustling noise from clothing, but to this day I still always choose shirts with a breast pocket.
The aid is a Phonak Versáta Micro; it is a powerful device which suits my fairly severe hearing loss. I'm looking forward to future developments which will enable me to connect easily to my mobile phone and other devices.
I got the aid privately; it cost me a lot but it is just so much better than my NHS aid that I reckon the higher quality is well worth paying for. I'm keeping hold of my NHS aid as a spare, though.
I'm still having to relearn to listen to music, and to join in singing effectively, as the new aid protects my ears from sudden surges in volume. There is a special music programme available for the aid which I'll look at on my next audiology review.

Matthew

Lancashire Pride

Tommy Thompson (1880-1951)

Tommy Thompson was best known as a writer in the Lancashire dialect, and he wrote short sketches of Lancashire life for the back page of the Manchester Guardian from the late 1920's until his sudden death on February 15 1951. He also appeared regularly on the North Regional programme of the BBC in the 1940's, where he gave Wilfred Pickles his first break as Owd Thatcher in the barber shop where many of the sketches were set.

Most of the sketches from the Manchester Guardian were published in a series of books which were very successful in their day, and apparently were also very popular with American servicemen stationed in the North of Britain during World War II. He also wrote three novels Blind Alley, Crompton Way, and Cuckoo Narrow which were less successful, as well as a one-act comedy Stick-in-the-Mud, and his "little autobiography" Lancashire for me written in standard English.

Bernard Wrigley, the folksinger sometimes known as "the Bolton Bullfrog" has read some of Tommy Thompson's sketches on BBC Radio Lancashire, but I don't think he has recorded any of them. I hope the best of the sketches, and the autobiography, will one day be republished, as they well deserve a new readership.

The short pieces are full of a gentle humour, which can actually be quite sharp at times, and his characters are fully rounded individuals who come to life in a few short, pithy phrases. The rambling discussions in Owd Thatcher's barber shop are excellent of their kind; Tommy Thompson had a real genius for dialogue. The language is rich and expressive, and it is a real pleasure to read slowly while relishing the clear picture Thompson draws of some very extraordinary 'ordinary folk'.

Here is a short extract from a piece in 'Lancashire Pride': Music Hath Charms where the men in the barber shop are talking about music.

  "When Ah wor in th' village band we played 'Faust,' " said Jim Gregson.

  "Which on 'em?" said Young Winterburn, "Gounod or Berlioz?"

  "Both," said Jim. "We'd only five copies o' either. Ah wor on Gounod an' our Sam wor on Berlioz. Ah showed him who could play cornet. He never played a note after that do."

   "It'd sound like Wagner," said the barber.

   "When Ah wor a choir lad," said Farmer Platt, "we sung under the vicarage window when th' parson lay on his death-bed. He didn't tarry for an encore."

   "It con be terr'bly soothin'," said Owd Thatcher, "con music. That's why they play it in eatin'-houses. If tha chews a bit o' tough steak to a good tune tha con down it in no time."

   "Ah like chamber music," said Young Winterburn.

   "What's that?" asked Owd Thatcher.

   "Why," said Jim Gregson, "there's about four or five on 'em sits in a ring, an' one fiddle says 'Tiddley oom,' the t' other fiddle says 'Piddley pom,' then th' owd big fiddle chips in wi' 'Grunt, grunt,' then they o' han a do at each other 'ell for leather until it's oppenin' time."

   "In th' owden times," said Young Winterburn, "folks used to stop in an' sing madrigals."

   "They knew no better," said Alf Higson. "We're civilised now."

From:Tommy Thompson, Lancashire Pride, 1945

Lime Street Station, Liverpool

What a difference the new entrance to Lime Street station makes. It is a wonderful open public space, with a terrific uninterrupted view of the whole station frontage. The Central Point Tower has gone, and so has the giant mechanical spider seen clinging to it two years ago!

The Real Amazons!

Mandy Vere from the Liverpool radical bookshop News From Nowhere recently published a letter in the Guardian to protest at the pricing policies adopted by Waterstone's. News From Nowhere is a small haven in Bold Street where they sell real books and act as a focal point for many community groups. Waterstone's 3 for 2 aggressive pricing may seem to give the customer cheap books, but the policy actually reduces the choices available to book lovers.
Its been a struggle for this shop to keep going, but where many other independent shops have buckled under the strains this women's co-operative has stayed around.
Visit their website News From Nowhere, or better still visit the shop in Bold Street, and buy your books from the Real Amazons!

Matthew Edwards

The return of Henry Bohn

After my earlier lament for the disappearance of this valuable Liverpool institution, I'm pleased to be able to report that the shop has reopened around the corner in London Road (next to the Empire Theatre box office). It has actually been open for a few months now but I've only just been inside again today. There are lots of books stacked in chaotic order; many of them still in cardboard boxes awaiting pricing, so a persistent explorer may turn up all sorts of surprises. I was very pleased to discover a wartime edition of  Lancashire Pride by the Lancashire dialect writer Tommy Thompson for £3.50. This contains many of the wonderful articles he wrote for the Manchester Guardian in the 1930's and 1940's. Apparently the book sold well to American soldiers stationed in the North of England, so there must be some bemused children and grandchildren of those veterans who are struggling to understand the earthy humour in these tales. I'll add one of these tales in a later blog.

Matthew Edwards

Celebrating Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month

This month, June 2009, is being marked in Britain as History Month for the Gypsy, Roma and Travelling communities to remind people both within and outside these communities of their real and lasting role played in history and culture.

In the wake of the gains made by the BNP in England, by the Jobbik anti-Roma party in Hungary, and by other extreme parties elsewhere in the June 2009 European Parliamentary elections let us remind ourselves how these communities have been victimised and marginalised in the past. The attempts by the Nazis to wipe out the Roma are only recent history. Even more recent was the killing of 15 year-old Traveller Johnny Delaney in Ellesmere Port in May 2003, which is not widely known about. Read the BBC report of the trial of Johnny's killers; the police investigation treated this as a racist crime but the judge in the case decided otherwise.

The big event in the Travelling community this month is of course the Appleby Fair in Cumbria, but the website of the Gypsy Roma Traveller History Month GRTHM shows other events being organised all round Britain. The GRT Achievement Service in Leeds has an online shop with a new DVD 'The First Traveller' for sale with songs, stories and music from such Travellers as Sheila Stewart MBE. The GRTHM has also produced a small collection of songs in the downloadable Romano Drom Songbook.

Here is a great cultural tradition to celebrate, and one which should be valued for its vitality and vigour.

Nicodemus
8 June 2009

Paul Robeson's Transatlantic Concert on CD

Back in 1957 the Welsh branch of the National Union of Miners invited Paul Robeson to sing at the Miner's Eisteddfodd at Porthcawl. However the US government had withdrawn Robeson's passport on account of his political activities, and he couldn't attend. However thanks to the recent installation of a transatlantic telephone cable he was able to sing by a phone link to an audience of 5000 miners, and to listen to the Treorchy Male Voice Choir sing for him. It was an intensely moving experience for all the participants and the Welsh NUM issued a record of the concert which captured some of the excitement of that moment. Robeson had had a very strong connection with South Wales since his role in the 1940 Ealing film The Proud Valley and he had supported unemployed miners in the 1930's.

Sain records have now released a CD of the Transatlantic Exchange concert along with another 20 songs from Robeson.

The Proud Valley doesn't seem to be available in the UK on DVD or video, but customers in North America can buy a boxed set of Paul Robeson's films from Criterion which looks well worth viewing.

Loss of a Liverpool bookshop

Henry Bohn Books, the second-hand and antiquarian bookshop in Lime Street, Liverpool has announced that it will close for business on the 27th January 2008. The shop premises will be demolished as part of the redevelopment of the Lime Street Station Gateway Project by English Partnerships. According to English Partnerships "The Gateway site currently consists mainly of low-grade retail shops and offices" and apparently a second-hand bookshop is of no value in our City of Culture.

It will be tremendously exciting to have the facade of Lime Street Station revealed once again in all its glory, and there will be few mourners at the loss of the hideous Centre Point tower. But I cannot understand why the powers behind Liverpool Vision couldn't have negotiated alternative sites for the few "low-grade shops" instead of bullying them out of business with a Compulsory Purchase Order. As it is these shops have been blamed for holding up progress while simply fighting for their rights to carry on trading. Liverpool Vision announced in September 2007 that their grandiose ideas had been affected by "the delays caused by a prolonged CPO process", resulting in "a thorough reappraisal of the Gateway project."

Henry Bohn Books is one of very few outposts of genuine culture and civilisation remaining in the so-called City of Culture. A really imaginative "Liverpool Vision" would incorporate the business as a vital part of the new Gateway; but sadly Henry Bohn has been consigned to a virtual internet existence, although there is a possibility of a physical reincarnation around the corner in the spring.

I have enjoyed visting Henry Bohn where there is almost always a good and interesting conversation going on about books, music or city politics. My wallet has often suffered after browsing the shelves, but I have always emerged feeling the richer for my visit.

BBC Sound Archive

There was an excellent programme broadcast on Radio 4 on Saturday 1 Sept 2007 about the work of Marie Slocombe in saving and preserving many historic sound recordings. The broadcast can be heard again through the BBC's 'Listen Again' facility by clicking on the audio button here:- Saving the Sounds of History.

There is some more background information in the BBC online Magazine in an article by Sean Street who presented the programme.

One of the jewels in the crown of the BBC archives is the substantial collection of folk songs and music built up largely in the 1950's. A fraction of this collection was broadcast in the radio programme 'As I Roved Out' between 1953 and 1958, and a few items from the collection have been released on records. However the collection remains generally unknown which is a scandalous fate for a fabulously rich resource. There are contributions of songs, tunes, stories and folklore from all over Great Britain and Ireland which are part of our heritage today.

Marie Slocombe wrote about the collection in an article for the journal 'Folklore and Folk Music Archivist' in 1964 and the article can be viewed or downloaded in PDF from the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music.

The collection is now stored at British Library Sound Archive where it is available for listening - but you have to know what you are looking for! This is a clear example where resources ought to be online so that we can all share this wealth which surely belongs to us all in the first place.

Paul Robeson in Liverpool

Liverpool John Moores University has announced that the new series of Roscoe Lectures will begin with a lecture by the son of the famous singer, actor, and activist Paul Robeson.

"The next series will be launched on 3 October 2007 with a lecture by civil rights activist Paul Robeson Jnr, the only child of the legendary singer, actor and activist Paul Robeson. The lecture entitled 'My Father and Pioneering the Civil Rights Agenda in the US' will take place in St George's Hall, starting at 5pm.

Tickets for all Roscoe Lectures are free and are available by contacting Barbara Mace on 0151 231 3852 or emailing b.mace@ljmu.ac.uk."

Paul Robeson sang to a crowd of 10,00 in Liverpool in 1949, and there must be many people still around who can remember this. I wonder what they all felt as they heard him sing in the bomb sites of the post-war city. The city had also been the scene of some vicious racist attacks the previous year, and I imagine that Robeson's magnificent presence restored confidence to the black community.

Billy Bowman's Band

While browsing in a Cumbrian bookshop at the weekend I found a collection of Cumbrian Memories published by the local WI Federation; inside was a short piece (undated) recalling Billy Bowman and his sister arriving on a motorbike and sidecar to play at hunt balls and village dances. Denis Westmorland has a lovely song about Billy Bowman's Band, and Colin Armstrong's excellent song The Pride of Lorton Town has the line "Oh, I saw her at the hunt ball dance to Billy Bowman's band".

I wonder if there are any more memories of the band out there? Or even, by some miracle, some recordings of the band perhaps.

A Liverpool ballad singer

Some of the best observations of mid-19th century life in England come from outsiders such as the American writers, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Washington Irving and Herman Melville. They noticed and recorded what English writers often took for granted.

Here is a wonderful description of a Liverpool ballad singer by Herman Melville.

In Redburn, a semi-fictional account of his voyage to Liverpool in 1839, Herman Melville describes the character of a street ballad-singer.

"But one of the most curious features of the scene is the number of sailor ballad-singers, who, after singing their verses, hand you a printed copy, and beg you to buy. One of these persons, dressed like a man-of-war's-man, I observed every day standing at a corner in the middle of the street. He had a full, noble voice, like a church-organ; and his notes rose high above the surrounding din. But the remarkable thing about this ballad-singer was one of his arms, which, while singing, he somehow swung vertically round and round in the air, as if it revolved on a pivot. The feat was unnaturally unaccountable; and he performed it with the view of attracting sympathy; since he said that in falling from a frigate's mast-head to the deck, he had met with an injury, which had resulted in making his wonderful arm what it was.

I made the acquaintance of this man, and found him no common character. He was full of marvelous adventures, and abounded in terrific stories of pirates and sea murders, and all sorts of nautical enormities. He was a monomaniac upon these subjects; he was a Newgate Calendar of the robberies and assassinations of the day, happening in the sailor quarters of the town; and most of his ballads were upon kindred subjects. He composed many of his own verses, and had them printed for sale on his own account. To show how expeditious he was at this business, it may be mentioned, that one evening on leaving the dock to go to supper, I perceived a crowd gathered about the Old Fort Tavern; and mingling with the rest, I learned that a woman of the town had just been killed at the bar by a drunken Spanish sailor from Cadiz. The murderer was carried off by the police before my eyes, and the very next morning the ballad-singer with the miraculous arm, was singing the tragedy in front of the boarding-houses, and handing round printed copies of the song, which, of course, were eagerly bought up by the seamen."

The ballad is probably now lost to view; given the speed of composition the ballad singer in the tale above may simply have reprinted a ballad from stock which more or less told the same story. Murder ballads were pretty commonplace; most printers would have had a few to hand which could be utilised to fit any particular set of circumstances. A really sensational story like the Red Barn murder however would generate lots of new songs which could sell very well indeed.

Christmas Waits

In addition to the street singers and musicians already described, Nathaniel Hawthorne also wrote in his journals about some of the English Christmas customs. While the family was staying in Southport in 1856 they were entertained by what he termed 'Waits'.

"The Christmas Waits came to us on Christmas eve, and on the day itself, in the shape of little parties of boys or girls, singing wretched doggerel rhymes, and going away well pleased with the guerdon of a penny or two. Last evening came two or three older choristers at pretty near bedtime, and sang some carols at our door. They were psalm tunes, however. Everybody with whom we have had to do, in any manner of service, expects a Christmas-box; but, in most cases, a shilling is quite a satisfactory amount. We have had holly and mistletoe stuck up on the gas-fixtures and elsewhere about the house."


This was a change from Hawthorne's previous Chrismas, spent in a Liverpool lodging house;- "Early in the morning of Christmas day, long before daylight, I heard music in the street, and a woman's voice, powerful and melodious, singing a Christmas hymn. Before bedtime I presume one half of England, at a moderate calculation, was the worse for liquor." However it may be that he was feeling the pain of being separated from his wife who was abroad in Lisbon while he was confined to his Consular duties. Certainly Christmas in 1854 had been a moment of great personal contenment, and Hawthorne then wrote "I think I have been happier this Christmas than ever before,--by my own fireside, and with my wife and children about me,--more content to enjoy what I have,--less anxious for anything beyond it in this life. My early life was perhaps a good preparation for the declining half of life; it having been such a blank that any thereafter would compare favorably with it."

He was struck by the abundance of food in the shops before Christmas; this is London in 1857 - "The shops in London begin to show some tokens of approaching Christmas; especially the toy-shops, and the confectioners',--the latter ornamenting their windows with a profusion of bonbons and all manner of pygmy figures in sugar; the former exhibiting Christmas-trees, hung with rich and gaudy fruit. At the butchers' shops, there is a great display of fat carcasses, and an abundance of game at the poulterers'." Elsewhere in the Passages from the English Notebooks Hawthorne comments on the English fascination with meat on a visit to Skipton Market, "The English people really like to think and talk of butcher's meat, and gaze at it with delight; and they crowd through the avenues of the market-houses and stand enraptured round a dead ox."

Another Chritmas practice that Hawthorne noted was that of kissing under the mistletoe "On Christmas Eve and yesterday, there were little branches of mistletoe hanging in several parts of the house, in the kitchen, the entries, the parlor, and the smoking-room,--suspended from the gas-fittings. The maids of the house did their utmost to entrap the gentlemen boarders, old and young, under the privileged places, and there to kiss them, after which they were expected to pay a shilling. It is very queer, being customarily so respectful, that they should assume this license now, absolutely trying to pull the gentlemen into the kitchen by main force, and kissing the harder and more abundantly the more they were resisted. A little rosy-cheeked Scotch lass--at other times very modest--was the most active in this business. I doubt whether any gentleman but myself escaped. I heard old Mr. S----- parleying with the maids last evening, and pleading his age; but he seems to have met with no mercy, for there was a sound of prodigious smacking immediately afterwards. J-----[Hawthorne's son, Julian] was assaulted, and fought most vigorously; but was outrageously kissed,--receiving some scratches, moreover, in the conflict. The mistletoe has white, wax-looking berries, and dull green leaves, with a parasitical stem."

Ballad chanters and croakers

Nathaniel Hawthorne was the American Consul in Liverpool from 1853 to 1857, and during his posting he kept journals of his life in England. He published some of his impressions in his book Our Old Home, and further extracts from his journals were published in two volumes after his death as Passages from the English Notebooks.

Within these Notebooks there are several references to street musicians and singers; the references are not all complimentary but they do show us something about the kind of people who played or sang in public, and what they sounded like to an educated American gentleman. Hawthorne doesn't claim any musical expertise, and his tastes appear to be quite conventional; he appreciates the singing of Jenny Lind, but is more moved at hearing Samuel Lover sing his Irish songs, or by one of Robert Burns' sons singing one of his father's compositions.

Hawthorne clearly found the street singers quite difficult to listen to:- "The ballad-singers are the strangest, from the total lack of any music in their cracked voices." (Passages from the English Notebooks, entry for June 20 1854) This may be a general observation based on his first encounter with a ballad-singer in Chester; "I passed, to-day, a man chanting a ballad in the street about a recent murder, in a voice that had innumerable cracks in it, and was most lugubrious." (Passages, November 5 1853) At any rate he seems to have met enough similar examples to describe the style thus; "Ballad-singers, or rather chanters or croakers, are often to be met with in the streets," (Passages, 1 December 1853)

Later, while on a visit to London, Hawthorne was favourably impressed by one particular street singer - but it turned out there were extenuating circumstances:-
"There is a woman who has several times passed through this Hanover Street, in which we live, stopping occasionally to sing songs under the windows; and last evening, between nine and ten o'clock, she came and sang "Kathleen O'Moore" richly and sweetly. Her voice rose up out of the dim, chill street, and made our hearts throb in unison with it as we sat in our comfortable drawing-room. I never heard a voice that touched me more deeply. Somebody told her to go away, and she stopped like a nightingale suddenly shot; ... It seems she was educated to sing at the opera, and married an Italian opera-singer, who is now dead; lodging in a model lodging-house at threepence a night, and being a penny short to-night, she tried this method, in hope of getting this penny." (Passages, October 3 1855)

Hawthorne lived on the Wirral bank of the River Mersey in the elegant gated enclave of Rock Park, travelling across to his Consular offices in Liverpool by ferry. Aboard the ferry he was struck by the abject poverty of so many beggars, yet he recognised the dignity shown by these people and his journals describe one such "elderly beggar, with the raggedest of overcoats, two great rents in the shoulders of it disclosing the dingy lining, all bepatched with various stuff covered with dirt,...--a miserable object; but it was curious to see how he was not ashamed of himself, but seemed to feel that he was one of the estates of the kingdom, and had as much right to live as other men." (Passages, December 10 1853)

Among the beggars who travelled on the ferries were bands of musicians; Hawthorne may not have thought much of the music, but the sadness of their situation clearly affected him.
"On board the ferry, until the coldest weather began, there were always some wretched musicians, with an old fiddle, an old clarinet, and an old verdigrised brass bugle, performing during the passage, and, as the boat neared the shore, sending round one of their number to gather contributions in the hollow of the brass bugle. They were a very shabby set, and must have made a very scanty living at best. Sometimes it was a boy with an accordion, and his sister, a smart little girl, with a timbrel,--which, being so shattered that she could not play on it, she used only to collect halfpence in." (Passges, December 1 1853)

The young boy with the accordion made a deep impression on Hawthorne, as he recorded in his journal two years later: "There is a little boy often on board the Rock Ferry steamer with an accordion,--an instrument I detest; but nevertheless it becomes tolerable in his hands, not so much for its music, as for the earnestness and interest with which he plays it. His body and the accordion together become one musical instrument on which his soul plays tunes, for he sways and vibrates with the music from head to foot and throughout his frame, half closing his eyes and uplifting his face, as painters represent St.Cecilia and other famous musicians; and sometimes he swings his accordion in the air, as if in a perfect rapture. After all, my ears, though not very nice, are somewhat tortured by his melodies, especially when confined within the cabin. The boy is ten years old, perhaps, and rather pretty; clean, too, and neatly dressed, very unlike all other street and vagabond children whom I have seen in Liverpool. People give him their halfpence more readily than to any other musicians who infest the boat." (Passages, June 11 1855)

Elsewhere in the Notebooks Hawthorne also describes the holiday scenes of "pale-looking" factory workers enjoying days out on the river, or in resorts such as Southport, where music and dancing and fairground entertainments provided a release from the toil of the mills and factories.

This is a valuable contemporary account of England in the early 1850's as seen by a sympathetic outsider; Hawthorne made a record of scenes which others simply took for granted, and even if he didn't much enjoy the songs or music he heard in the streets he still was sensitive to the people who produced them.

Magdalene Laundries: Bizarre Opening

It is a bit late in the day to catch up with the film 'Magdalene Laundries', but as it has just been broadcast on Channel 4 on 30 November it has been my first sighting of it. It is a powerful film which portrays the sheer awfulness of treatment issued to 'errant' women in Catholic Ireland in the 1960's - although such treatment isn't confined to Ireland, or to Catholics, nor to the (not so distant) past. Young women and girls who had illegitimate children, or who were thought to be morally at risk were sent to institutions run by nuns - portrayed in the film as cruel and sadistic, but who were probably in reality as much victims of a harsh moral climate as the inmates themselves.

The film began badly; there is a wedding scene with Irish music playing but a sinister note is introduced by a priest singing the song 'The Well Below the Valley' which tells of a girl who has had illegitimate children and will have to pay penance in purgatory for her sins. The scenes then show a girl being raped by her cousin while the wedding celebrations merrily continue.

BUT - and this reveals huge difficulties. The song 'The Well Below the Valley' had a reputation as an unlucky song as the full version describes incest and infanticide; by the 1960's hardly anybody in Ireland sang it except a few among the travelling community. No priest would have sung it. It would never, ever, have been sung at a wedding. ( I shall pass over the sheer anachronism of the highly decorated bodhran the priest is seen to be playing.)

The song was popularised in the 1970's by the Irish folk band Planxty who had learned it from the recording of an Irish Traveller, John Reilly, who had died from malnutrition in 1969. But its theme ensured that it is still seen as a 'difficult' song and other recordings of the song are still relatively rare.

Above all it isn't a song for a social occasion and it is this inability to understand cultural contexts that grates so much that for me it undermines the truth of the rest of the film.

Denvir's Penny Irish Library

If you perform a Google search for "John Denvir", you will likely be asked whether you really meant to search for John Denver. In the 19th Century John Denvir (1834-1916) was a noted Liverpool Irishman and a strong supporter of the republican cause. Although born in Ireland while his father was working there, Denvir belonged to an Irish community that was well established in Liverpool before the 1840's. As a young boy in Liverpool he witnessed the terrible scenes of distress among migrants escaping the Famine, scenes which powerfully influenced his political development as an Irish nationalist. His autobiography, 'The Life Story of an Old Rebel', was first published in 1910, and it is now available to read online at Project Gutenburg.

It is well worth reading for the story it gives of how the Irish in Britain developed a heightened political consciousness which was almost entirely based on Irish events, rather than on their own experiences in their 'home' community. Denvir himself contributed significantly to this expression of a distinct Irish cultural and political identity by publishing a series of penny booklets in the 1870's in his 'Irish Library'. These were sold by the thousands at the time but are extremely rare today. I've had to look in the British Library catalogue to find a list of his titles and I've shown them below to indicate how 'Irishness' was being expressed at the time.


Denvir's Penny Library, later issued as Denvir's Penny illustrated Irish Library
Published in Liverpool in two volumes in a monthly series, 1873-1874

No. 1 Ireland: her monks at home & abroad. Richard J. O'Neill
No. 2 Catechism of Irish history. John Francis MacArdle
No. 3 The Book of Irish Poetry. John Denvir
No. 4 The Second Book of Irish Poetry. John Denvir
No. 5 The Third Book of Irish Poetry. John Denvir
No. 6 Biography of Marshal MacMahon, Duke of Magenta. W.J. Ashton
No. 7 The red hand of Ulster; or, The captive chief of Tyrconnell. John Denvir
No. 8 The life of Patrick Sarsfield, Earl of Lucan. John Hand
No. 9 The life of O'Connell.
No. 10 How Ned Joyce went to his own funeral.
No. 11 The Life of Robert Emmet. John Hand
No.12 A wreath of Irish song and story

Vol. 2 No. 13 What is home rule? Hugh Heinrick
Vol. 2 No. 14 The camp fires of the legion in the late Franco-Prussian war. J. Lysaght Finigan
Vol. 2 No. 15 Hugh O'Neill, the great Ulster chieftain. Slieve Donard
Vol. 2 No. 16 Rosaleen Dhu; or, The twelve pins of bin-a-bola: an Irish drama in three acts. John Denvir
Vol. 2 No. 17 The story of '98. Ross E. Trevor
Vol. 2 No. 18 Home rule ballads. John Denvir
Vol. 2 No. 19 Irish street ballads. John Hand
Vol. 2 No. 20 The Irish in England. Hugh Heinrick
Vol. 2 No. 21 The Irish in the United States of America. John Denvir
Vol. 2 No. 22 Brian Boru and the Danish invasion. Daniel Crilly
Vol. 2 No. 23 "God save Ireland!" or, The rescue of Kelly & Deasey. Slieve Donard
Vol.2 No. 24 Our Irish Christmas garland

"Slieve Donard" was the pen name used by John Denvir