Addendum

Besides the songs printed here there were several other items in the original manuscripts I managed to save from being burnt. These the editor chose not to include in this work for a variety of reasons, they are listed below for posterity’s sake.

A Play: Money’s Worth 1927
A short story: Old Dan 1939
Two poems: To a Mother 1930 & A Hunting (a satyr)
1930 Two dialect pieces: A Neet Wi’t Bugs 1927 & Ahr Jane Ann Goas Dancin’ 1928
The Songs:
Old Margery
Tha’ Old Uncle Joe
The Hungry Army
Sitting on a gate
Bread of Idleness
Slap Dash Joe the Painter
The Legend of Old Jabez Varne

I have not been able to trace the verses of a song called "Twenty Tom Puddings". Tommy sang a couple of verses and the chorus of it to us after dinner on Christmas Day, the year before he died. I recall he sang it after demolishing a plate full of mince pies, saying that they were the finest mince pies he’d ever tasted. Maybe it had something to do with how he had made a hole in the top and filled them brim full of rum.

I recall the very singable chorus went:

"There’s five Tom puddings at back of me tug
 There’s ten Tom Puddings at back of me tug
 With steam in me boiler, and rum in me jug
 I see twenty Tom Puddings at back of me tug".

Whether it was a work in progress, or a fully-fledged song we’ll never know. Only the members of my family seem to have ever heard it.

A ‘Tom Pudding’ was the name given to ‘tub boats’ on the Aire and Calder Navigation canal that linked Leeds with the Port of Goole and opened access from the Yorkshire coalfields to the Humber and beyond. In the 19th century they proved to be as economical a method of transporting coal as did the expanding railway system. A single tugboat, or barge, could tow a train of up to ten Tom Puddings, or compartment boats, each carrying 35 tons of coal. The empty row of Puddings was towed to loading point near the pit, they were then filled with coal and then towed back to Goole. At Goole a mechanical hoist lifted each tub and emptied into a waiting ship, so the coal could be transported overseas.

Bibliography & links

Crown Street Comic Band by Ronnie Wharton and Authur Clarke, Bradford Library 1977

The Tommy Talker Bands of the West Riding by Ronnie Wharton and Authur Clarke, Arc and Throstle Press, Todmorden, West Yorkshire 1979.

A dictionary of Occupational Terms, Ministry of Labour 1921 - 693- Gas Stokers.  www.doot.spub.co.uk

The Leeds Gas Workers Dispute www.johnhearfield.com

The Story of the Humble Havercake. www.theyorkshiresociety.org

Tom Pudding History and Heritage. www.canalworld.net 

Discography

Roy Bailey sang "Poverty Knock" on his LP Roy Bailey, Trailer LER 3021 (LP, UK, 1971)

Bill Price sang "Young Simon John" and "T’owd Farmer and his Shrew" on the album "Fine Old Yorkshire Gentleman" on Folk Heritage Recordings FHR 038 (LP, UK, 1972)

Pete Coe sang "Poverty Knock" on his album "A Right Song and Dance" Back Shift B.A.S.H 43 (LP, UK, 1989)