As I was Going to Skipton

I obtained this song in the Yorkshire Dales village of Buckden from Jackie Beresford in 1964.

Jackie at the time was the head bar man at the village local, The Buck Inn, he was also the local taxi driver and played the accordion with his son Peter for the local Country Dances. I’d got to know him well as I often camped in the area, whilst talking one night in the Buck, he told me that the Waterson Family were coming to see him next weekend to see if he could recollect any more songs. He said that when they visited, they always paid for his beer, but since they’d already collected all he knew, it looked like there would be no more free beer for him.

I suggested to him that he should write a song for them. When I returned to Buckden a few weeks later I asked him how he’d got on with the Watersons, he said he’d had a great weekend, and he had given them a song called "The Skipton Ram" and they’d bought his ale. He told me that he’d concocted the song from two songs which he had learnt as a boy at school. He had freely adapted the words of the "Derby Ram" to localise the song, and the tune and chorus were from the New England whaling work song "Blow Ye Winds in the Morning." The Watersons included it on their 1966 album "A Yorkshire Garland" on the Topic record label no 12T 167 and they called the song "The Yorkshire Tup" .