Welcome to Our Fair Plus

Country Songs And Music

Country Songs and Music

Oak

Musical Traditions MTCD327-8 2003

2 CDs 32 tracks, 106 mins

+ 24 page integral booklet in DVD case £16.00

A double CD set containing all the songs and tunes from the seminal 1971 LP Welcome to Our Fair plus virtually everything else they ever sang or played, in live recordings from clubs in Cheltenham, Benfleet - and their final gig in Walthamstow.

Oak were:

Tony Engle: voice, anglo concertina, fiddle, bones
Danny Stradling: voice, tambourine
Rod Stradling: voice, melodeons
Peta Webb: voice, fiddle

The Nutley Waltz / Your Faithful Sailor Boy

‘Twas on a stormy New Year’s Eve,
The snow lay on the ground,
A sailor boy stood on the quay,
His ship was outward bound;
His sweetheart standing by his side
Shed many a bitter tear,
And as he clasped her to his breast
He whispered in her ear:

“Farewell, farewell my own true love,
This parting brings me pain,
I’ll be your own true guiding star
’Til I return again;
My thoughts will be of you, of you,
When the storm is raging high,
Farewell my love, remember me,
Your faithful sailor boy.”

Amidst the gale, the ship set sail,
His lass was standing by,
She watched the vessel out of sight
The tears bedimmed her eye;
She prayed to Him in heaven above
To guide him on his way,
And the loving words he spoke to her
Re-echoed o’er the bay.

“Farewell, farewell my own true love ...

But sad to say, the ship returned
Without her sailor boy,
He died whilst on the voyage home,
The flag was half-mast high;
And when his comrades came on shore,
Told her that he was dead,
A letter he had wrote to her,
The last line sadly read:

“Farewell, farewell my own true love ...

The Nutley Waltz was one of Scan Tester’s tunes, named for a village near his Sussex home. A really beautiful melody; we’ve never heard it anywhere else in the country.

Your Faithful Sailor Boy was written by G W Persley towards the end of the 19th century. Few songs have achieved such widespread popularity among country singers and their audiences. It turns up again and again in pub sing-songs throughout Britain, even through into the 1980s. Gavin Greig described it as being “Very popular in Aberdeenshire in the early years of this century” (and, sure enough, Daisy Chapman had it in her repertoire), and we have heard it in both Donegal and Cork in the last few years. Two versions have been found in the North Carolina mountains (there's a '20s hillbilly recording by Flora Noles, Sailor Boy's Farewell - Okeh 45037), while other sets have been reported from as far away as Australia and Tristan da Cunha. -245 Danny learned the song from Percy Webb in Suffolk, who swapped it with her for the full text of The Wild Colonial Boy, which we’re sure he never managed to remember in performance!

Welcome To Our Fair 1971 [click for larger image]

Topic Records, 12TS212 1971

cd 1

1. Thousand and More

2. Bob Cann's Barndance /

Hilligo Filligo

3. Roving Round County Tyrone (Peta)

4. Rose of Allandale

5. Australia (Rod)

6. Bluebell Polka

7. Bonny Hawthorn

8. False, False (Danny)

9. Cupid's Garden (Tony and Peta)

10. Nutley Waltz / Faithful Sailor Boy

11. Caning Girl (Tony)

12. Scarlet and the Blue

13. Lovely Banks of Lea (Peta)

14. Lass of Newcastle Town

15. Maggie (Danny)

16. Bunch of Thyme /

Perfect Cure / Sweets of May

cd 2

1. Shepherds Arise

2. Steamboat Hornpipe /

Speed the Plough

3. Lakes of Cold Flynn (Tony)

4. Genevieve

5. Pretty Nancy of Yarmouth

6. New Rigged Ship / Rig-a-Jig-Jig

7. Rambling Royal (Rod)

8. Our Good Ship Lies in Harbour

9. Our Ship is Ready (Peta)

10. Scan's Polkas Nos 1 & 2

11. Maggie May

12. Broomfield Wager

13. See Me Dance the Polka,

Oh Joe (Oscar's)

14. The Old Rustic Bridge (Danny)

15. Young Ellender

16. My Old Man / Tipperary / Troubles /

Daisy / Dicky Bird / Hour

Scan Tester

1887 - 1972

an appreciation by

Rod and Danny Stradling

at Musical Traditions

Scan Tester

1886 - 1972

born Lewis Tester in Chelwood Gate,

near Horsted Keynes, Sussex.At

about the age of five he acquired

the nickname "scantelope". There

are several variants on the story,

but his immediate family used the

name "Scan" and he used it when

advertising himself as a musician