The Titchfield Song
Buttercup Joe is a fruity song about a village boy who adores young Nell from Farmer Jones dairy. He makes the most of the countryways and as well as references to her dumplings, the song mentions the neighboring town of Fareham too. It was a favourite in Titchfield pub sing songs at the turn of the nineteenth century, but is it a real folk song and does it belong to the village? Some may equally well remember it with slightly different words from their time in the forces.
So what is a folk song? This is a hotly contested issue to which we shall return later, although the late Louis Armstrong once said ‘all songs are folk songs, because they were written by folk, I ain’t never heard of no horse singing one’.
Most nations recognise their own folk culture. Some value their traditional music and clearly identify it as part of their national heritage; even allocating a budget so that it can be preserved like architecture or geology. In Britain there is little support for folk music and dance, there is even a bill currently in parliament that could severely inhibit the live performance of folk songs in public.
In early times the survival of songs, ritual dances and drama relied totally on their performance. By ritual dance and drama, we mean Morris dancing, mummers’ plays and passion plays. Theory has it that Britain inherited Morris and mumming from North Africa, brought through Europe by the Moors. They were originally Pagan but the Turkish Knights and Egyptian Queens are now Christian characters.
Hampshire's Bitterne Mummers, one of the oldest sides in the country, were revived only 20 years ago, but parts of the plays they perform will have links with the original drama from well over 2000 years ago; spooky! We don’t know much about Moorish music and song, it must have been quite rhythmic and raucous, with drums and raspy woodwind instruments. Its strains are still heard in Baroque and Celtic traditions, the latter is of course still celebrated in Brittany, Cornwall, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, the western route the Celts took through the British Isles.
Live music is essential! Candlelight Victorian evenings brought the family together around the parlour piano were very important; then the pop industry of the day descended upon it by writing the typical ballads like ‘If those lips could only speak’, ‘When I wore a tulip’ and other audible chintz. There would also have been family songs that had passed down through generations of close-knit families, some of them would be rarities. Love songs, work songs from farming communities, or shanties etc. from the navvies and sailors, all forming a heritage liable to be lost.
The musical box, the polyphone and the wind-up gramophone began to take the incentive out of learning instruments at the turn of the century, and the live performance was on the slippery slope to obscurity.
Cecil Sharpe realised that our folk heritage was being lost, so he grasped the opportunity to save our heritage. Starting in Oxfordshire, he sought doyens of song and Morris dance sides and the mammoth task of building an archive. The printing industry also pursued Sharpe for printable material; improved efficiency had left many of them with spare capacity. His enthusiasm was echoed in the south; Lucy Broadwood collected in Sussex whilst the Hammond brothers and Dr. George Gardiner did Hampshire, Wilts and the south west. They would take down the song straight on to the music stave, but some later made use of portable wax cylinder recorders.
The work of these collectors was brought together by Cecil Sharpe in the Vaughan Williams memorial at the headquarters of the English Folk Dance and Song Society, at Cecil Sharpe House which he left to the society in his will. Tom Lehrer, the American satirist took a different view. He reckoned that ‘the problem with folk songs is that they were written by the people, if commercial song writers had written then they would have been more popular’.
George Gardiner collected many good songs in Hampshire; one of the best sources was Portsmouth workhouse. Visiting Titchfield in September, 1907; he collected two songs. The first from William Stockley of Locksheath is the "Night Visit Song" tells of a traveller braving everything to spend a night with his lass. The second Bonny Kate was collected from William Burgess who was head of a long-standing Titchfield family who at that time lived East Street. ‘
Bonny Kate
’ is a rarity, the lyrics have an early 18th century feel whilst the tune is reminiscence of an old circular dance.
William Burgess, was a bit of a lad like Buttercup Joe, perhaps it was his song? As town crier he wore a three cornered hat and was dubbed 'Mayor of Titchfield'. He was a big, larger than life character, much loved in the village. A great night was in the offing when the lads from the strawberry farms gathered in the village bar and Bill arrived to lead the singing. There were certain to be some high jinks later.
Meanwhile the Victorian music hall was the most common form of live entertainment and its popularity had a voracious appetite for performable material. Perhaps the easiest performance to put together was the character song, what could be easier than to don a smock and sing "To be a Farmer's Boy"? They sang specially written songs, self-written songs and folk songs; so it is easy to see how tradition acquired a lot of Victorian colour. Some of the village singers had learned the songs they gave to the collectors by visiting the local music hall; one might call it reciprocal research.
Although we said each nation has its own songs, we exclude America. Apart from the commissioned pieces composed by folksy writers like Souza, all the Yanks have is everybody else’s. As it turned out, this is not a bad thing; Alan Lomax rediscovered many British songs, during his research of the #x2018;States in the 1960’s and brought them back in slightly Americanised form.
Cliff Burgess, grandson of Bill is quite a character in his own right; he remembers the Titchfield song as one of the most popular. ‘Buttercup Joe’ however was collected by Dr. Gardiner from Richard Hall in 1905 at Itchen Abbas, two years before he met Bill. Although the song is a lot of fun, it had travelled the music hall stages long before it became a folk song.
B/W picture: Bill Burgess as the town crier / night watchman.
Written: 22nd January 2003 for the forthcoming Web site
Author: Paul Hawkins
Song: Bonny Kate
Source 1: Vaughan Williams Library, English Folk Dance & Song Society
Source 2: Cliff Burgess.