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Sleeve Notes
CYRIL TAWNEY was born into a Royal Navy family near the R.N. Barracks Gosport, Hants, October 12th, 1930. His father's family were local (though his grandfather ran away to sea from a farming family in Sussex), but his mother, a weaver, came from Belfast, Northern Ireland. Cyril became an R.N. Apprentice at the age of 16 which meant signing away 14 years in uniform. In fact he only served 12 years, for in 1959 he "bought himself out " of the Navy in order to become a professional folk-singer.
Although his interest in singing started, with records of Frank Crumit and Jimmie Rodgers, from the age of three, it was towards the end of his apprenticeship that he was given a battered object which he later discovered to be a guitar. He was with a friend who was "passing out ", prior to joining the Fleet. "Take this", said the now qualified sailor, "it's nearly driven me bonkers, you'd better have it". Says Cyril: "The … thing nearly drove me bonkers as well".
In 1952, while serving on the aircraft carrier Indefatigable, he bought a more respectable guitar and "news got around", so that he found himself in a guitar group "led by a young sailor from Liverpool who turned out to be quite a virtuoso in the Reinhardt mould". Drafted into the Submarine Service he spent 18 months in Malta where singing "was a natural as breathing and nobody stared at you if you strolled along the road warbling to a guitar". This he claims was the time of his singing apprenticeship, "going from bar to bar with a handful of friends to help in the choruses".
On returning home in 1956 he found U.K. in the middle of "The Skiffle Craze". He joined The English Folk Dance and Song Society and took part in the first English Folk Music Festival at Cecil Sharp House in London. Since then he has become well-known as a folk-singer and song-maker, taking part in many programmes on the radio and television. He has had his own 15 minute TV programme, " Watch Aboard", which involved a studio reconstruction of a Petty Officer's Mess.
The Lean and Unwashed Tiffy — The title from Will Shakespeare — he mentions a lean and unwashed artificer, which is the tradesman in the Royal Navy, "Tiffies" for short.
The second verse was incorporated after hearing an old seaman singing "The One Eyed Riley", except the word isn't "kissed" in "The One Eyed Riley".
A Ship Came Sailing — This must have been one of the first songs that I learned from the Baring-Gould collection. I was to discover later, of course, that these stanzas crop up time and time again, often in other songs as floating verses. I particularly like singing it because it contains a form of the "I wish, I wish" stanza that can be sung by a man without blushing!
Chicken on a Raft — The title of this "shantey" type song means fried egg on a piece of fried bread; it is a standard Navy breakfast and, in spite of what the song says, one of the most popular. I had a lot of "Floating Verses", which I'd not used in other songs, so I just used them up in the same way as a Shanteyman would use them.
Almost traditionally in the Navy, the seamen, the Dabtoes, live for'ard and the stokers, the Dustmen, live aft. The name Dabtoes comes from the old days when they used to swab the decks and keep their feet dabbling in the water — and the stokers for obvious reasons have always been called Dustmen. The Jimmy is the first Lieutenant of a ship. Comic Cuts are the personal confidential documents about each sailor which he's supposed not to see.
A Whaler is a Naval pulling boat. Donny B. is the sailor's name for Donibristle in Scotland, in the same way that Inverkeithing is called Inver K. As "G.I." is for the American Service, anything belonging to the Navy, or Navy style, is called Pussers a corruption of the word "Purser".
The Grey Funnel Line — That's the sailor's nickname for the Royal Navy. He likes to try and kid himself it is one of the Merchant Navy Lines because he's very jealous of the extra liberties of merchant-seamen-cabins, beer and the right to wear civilian clothes ashore.
This is a "Sunset Song". If you're sailing away from home I think sunset is a time when you get most nostalgic of all — especially if it's a nice red sunset going down over the water and you happen to be up top on deck and you realise that you are one day further away from home.
Your actions will be completely mechanical until the blue water turns to green. You've got the deep blue of the Med. — then the "Ink blue" of the Bay of Biscay, and as you come nearer England it gets all "mucky green".
A Walk-ashore is an arrangement they have with ships laying some distance from a wall. They have a series of catemerans (double floats) like a pontoon.
This was just about the last song I made up before I left the Royal Navy in 1959.
The Man At The Nore — An amalgamation of two versions. One from Pat Shaw, and the other from Peter Kennedy, both sources were Royal Navy, and from West Country families (Kitchen and Crickmay).
The Nore Lightship marks a sandbank at the confluence of the River Thames and the River Medway. It was the first Trinity House Lightvessel in 1723, though the need for it was recognised a century before.
Sally Free and Easy — As far as the words are concerned this was an attempt at an English equivalent to the Blues. I didn't want to use Blues rhythm so I used the accompaniment from the throbbing of a diesel engine. You get this throbbing sound when a submarine's "doing a charge" in harbour.
This song came out of a very morbid period that I went through — I didn't write the song then — I always write them in retrospect — I recapture the mood that I had, rather than write the songs at the time. The song really refers to a little affair out in Malta. (Of course having thoroughly got over the thing I was in a better position to write a proper song about it).
Stanley The Rat — My first sea going ship was a big Aircraft Carrier, The Indefatigable and accommodation was very short. I was a "green" young artificer, just passed out. On my first night in the mess I arrived with my hammock. I'd been travelling, I was very tired, so I turned in early. The rest of them were still sitting round playing cards and writing letters.
As you get into the hammock of course you're very close to the deckhead, and to the channel plating which carries the electric cables right through the ship like a miniature railway. All of a sudden there was a kind of a shadow passed over my face. They looked at their watches. I said: "What was that" — "Oh" they said, "It's a rat — He always comes by this time at night and dashes through the mess". "You can't catch him, he goes so fast — He comes back in about a quarter of an hour". Already up in my hammock, I didn't feel like getting out, so I just had to wait and, sure enough, he flashed by, dead on time.
We never did catch him and in the end I got used to him (After that I didn't turn in quite so early). I christened him Stanley and wrote a poem about him. Then a good many years later, I put the "Brian O Lynn" tune to it.
Pull The String — This song is often called "Jack the Jolly Tar O". I learned it from Peter Kennedy who collected it from Stanley Slade, a shanteyman in Bristol, in 1950.
Six Feet Of Mud — This is a genuine "folk production" because the chorus was a communal affair; it was brought about by three of us, sitting round an electric fire, on board Indefatigable. We were all three feeling pretty fed up, for one reason or another, and we started this chant going all on one note. Eventually, slowly, after about half an hour our melody took shape, and also the words of the chorus. It is not really based on fact; but it did its job, after half an hour the miserable sound of our three voices had us in fits of laughter.
The tiddly suit is a sailor's best suit which he keeps for his parades or "divisions". Billet to let means a hammock space is free. Greenburghs is one of the Naval Tailors specializing in supplying sailors. If a sailor has a bad debt, the firm can't force the man to pay through the Navy, they have to take Civil action so this fellow is "in Crown Debt". The Green Rub, a raw deal, I think derives from "a rub of the green", a golfing term. Doing a Sub is merely "to stand in for somebody" — usually applied to duties, if a person wants to go ashore.
The Oggy Man's No More — Oggy is the Plymouth name for a Cornish Pasty. It's a great favourite with sailors especially if they've been "a night on the beer". As they come back on board, they usually buy a couple of pasties and there was only one man who used to supply them — "The Oggy Man". He used to stand outside Albert Gate, Devonport Dockyard. He was an institution — but he was eventually driven out by the Hot Dog stands which started in about 1950.
This song is really two stories. First a lament for these things that are passing — the fact that there's not an Oggy Man anymore, and second that sailors should never take it for granted that things are going to be the same when they come back.
The tune is somewhat influenced by hearing Shirley Collins singing "Pay day at Coal Creek", and the accompaniment prompted by the sound of the rain.
The Sailor Cut Down In His Prime — Although my grandfather used to sing this, this version is mainly from Charlie Wills of Bridport. It must certainly have been quite a popular lower deck song in grandfather's day, as it is still fairly well known in the Plymouth area, sometimes being crossed with "The Fireship". This may be due to medical science rendering venereal disease less lethal, so that it has now become a messdeck joke.
To suit my shipmates I often used to place the scene of this song on the seawall at Haslar Hospital, Gosport, a Naval Establishment that was familiar to them, in order to get their attention at the beginning of the song.
Nobby Hall — Although written recently, it is in fact based on something which happened in 1957. I went on a training course at Plymouth where they teach you about Gas Warfare: "ABCD Course" (Atomic, Biological, Chemical — warfare and Defence). When they got on to the toxic gasses which you are liable to encounter on board ship — outside of wartime — they mentioned one of these C.T.C. (Carbon Tetra Chloride). It's official use is for fire-extinguishers but it's a wonderful thing for cleaning clothes. As a warning about this gas — fact that you've got to use it in open-air, the lecturer used to tell us this story with great drama. He'd been doing this lecture for so long that he could tell the story with a horrible pause at the end — "And in the morning — he was dead". He'd said this so many times that he got the timing weighed right off, so that it drove such horror into everyone that they would never ever fail to observe the rules.
Diesel And Shale — I was standing at a bus stop. I had left submarines, and I started singing in a very slow, gentle sort of "Doney Gal" cowboy style. Eventually as the words came they took charge of the tune; and made it much bolder. I started the first few verses in 1958 when I was doing an electrical course at H.M.S. Collingwood, the rest didn't come until after I left the Navy in 1959.
Diesel and Shale are two different types of oil used in Submarines; these two oils mingled together give the submarine its peculiar smell. When the girls used to dance with the submariners at Portland they'd know by the smell that they'd just come off a sub, even if the men were in "Civvies" (Civilian clothes) and not in uniform. It is the same when you are dancing with a nurse — the smell of disinfectant.
The Diesel is used in the engines and the Shale is used in torpedoes and is also a very good cleaning oil for the decks. Food, clothes, everything smells of it; you can't get away from it.
The names in the last verse are the nicknames of my submarine captains — Crabby, Synagogue Dick and The Black Mamba, two of them being most hated in the Service and I got them both one after the other.