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Dedicated to the memory of Rosemary Tawney, loving wife of Cyril who sadly left us in March 2012.
Without her prior help, this release would not have been possible.
Sleeve Notes
Man Of Honour (1984) This song is often misunderstood. It's not so much about what has happened, which is very little, as what is threatening to happen. Who is the lonelier, the travelling solo folk singer, or his overnight hostess with a husband out at work and four walls to stare at? Over the years these two have grown closer with each visit, and their mutual sense of propriety has weakened with each breakfast they have shared I allowed my obsession with alliteration full play in these lyrics, but the melody seemed too sophisticated for Folk, so the song lay unused in a drawer for nine years before I first performed it at Southport in 1993. However, in the meantime I entered it for the 1987 Kendal "SONGSEÄRCH" Competition (not restricted to folk-style songs). It wasn't even short-listed but subsequent audiences seem to have had a different opinion.
Five Foot Flirt (1950) A mock-rustic ditty from the closing months of my Navy technical apprenticeship, very influenced by the contemporary American hit "Cigareets and Whisky". It was going to be sung in an HMS "Collingwood" revue by a scratch group, Sheepdip Tawney and the Cowshed Cleaners, but the show itself was never staged and then we all passed out into the fleet. The song finally came into its own with the Folk Revival. My mum always called it "Joviality".
In The Sidings (1963) It wasn't just the travelling public who were affected by the Beeching cuts. I knew a veteran railway worker who was running a Devon halt single-handed. He found himself facing the axe, so this song was loosely based on him.
Beacon Park (Circa 1968) Beacon Park was the quiet area of Plymouth where I first lodged in 1959, after completing 12 years in the Royal Navy. At first the contrast was welcome, but by 1961 I'd had enough of enforced tranquility and moved to the centre of town. The song came quite a while later. You need to know that Plymouth Albion Rugby Club has its ground at Beacon Park and that Geraldine Lamb ran a Plymouth ballet school (among whose pupils were Angela Rippon and my wife Rosemary).
On A Monday Morning (1961) The kind of song that can be heard with detached amusement only if you yourself aren't among the sufferers. Back in 1949 a naval apprentice's vocal quartet known as The Four Aways ('Lofty' Edwards, 'Dumbo' Elford, 'Windy' Waterhouse and Yours Truly) made a private recording of the current hit "Lucky Old Sun", and the idea recurs here in verse 4.
There Are No Lights on Our Christmas Tree (1962) A lament from a child who is clearly more of a traditionalist than his father. When Dad is watching TV he wants complete silence and no superfluous illumination, and that goes for Christmas too. Reference to the series ''Laramie" dates the song, but I've never been able to modernise it satisfactorily. The very rudimentary guitar work is intended for anybody who has been given one for Christmas and hasn't learned to play it yet.
Bitter-Sweet Bed (1966) I chipped away at this one, on and off, for three-and-a-half years before I felt it was right. A seduced woman lies in labour, faced with the prospect of becoming a deserted single parent. No song for a male to sing, so (not for the first time) Chris While, with Joe on keyboards, did me the great honour of breathing life into it. Special thanks, though, are also due to Plymouth's Meg Henderson, who took the song up soon after it was completed back in 1966. These two apart, female singers have tended to back off from the song for some reason. It was brought to life once more with Chris While on the Albion Band's rendition of it with their Acousticity album in 1993.
Vanity (1966) Begun in 1962 but added to in 1965 and 1966, this was a deliberate attempt to manufacture homespun philosophy. A ponder-ball is the weight just above the hook of a crane, keeping the cable taut.
Tamar Valley Requiem (1971) In 1971 John Pett and Angerla Rippon produced a Westward TV documentary called "THE SILENT VALLEY" about the derelict tin mines across the valley of the River Tamar between Devon and Cornwall. They asked me for a song, and this was the result. I imagined the area as a theatre stage where the play had once been about prosperity for all "the anthems of Midas could be heard every day") but was now concerned only with neglect and decay. Stylistically the song is a deliberate cross-pollination between 'SALLY FREE AND EASY' and 'THE OGGIE MAN'.
West Yorkshire Lullaby (1995) There aren't many Beacon Parks in West Yorkshire folks! A 'lullaby' for the most part, but it ends up more of a dandling song. It would probably sound at its best sung By Eartha Kit. Captain Oates, By the Way, Had His Family Home At Meanwood In Leeds.
Plymouth Lament (1962) "Let me be your sidetrack till your main line comes along" says a negro blues, and the fellow in this song has the same problem. In my early civilian days I did a fair amount of singing on Saturday nights in the Royal Navy at Meavy, just north of Plymouth. Outside the pub stands a 1,000-year-old oak. Although completely hollow it still produces a full foliage every year. Now you know what verse 4 is about.
My Mother Came from Norway (1958) I was back at the Navy's electrical school, HMS "Collingwood", when I threw this little squib together during one dinner-hour.
New Names for Old (1968) If a career-conscious American lady offers a fellow money to give her his name and British nationality in a marriage of convenience, with no strings attached, he might well turn her down, as a friend of mine did. But what if she's the girl of his dreams? Might he not take a chance on something more permanent?
If We Did to Their Daughters (1970) The late Fred Woods asked a few of us if we would produce songs for an album and songbook in aid of the World Wildlife Fund. As I hadn't worked with David Attenborough since he was a Navel Lieutenant at Rosyth in 1949, I promptly agreed to have a go. A protest song from my pen is something rare, so there was a tendency to cram every aspect of conservation into the one outburst. Like most others of its type the song is strong on overstatement. The mild expletive 'blooming' invites something more potent if you feel you like it, and verse two contains a nod in the direction of Woody Guthrie's "some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen". Lastly, I have felt obliged to update the final line, which originally referred to the old TV programme "All Our Yesterdays".