Huddersfield born former Prime Minister Harold Wilson sings Pratty Flowers with Colne Valley Male Voice Choir in 1984
Pratty Pratty Flowers
The very first time heard this song, it was sung by Mrs Kathy Fawthrop during an EFDSS sing-a-round session at the Woolpacks Hotel, Wakefield in 1965. In the following years it proved to be especially popular around the Holmfirth and Huddersfield.
All the versions are largely the same, but each village seems to have some slight variations of its own, Mrs Fawthrop always use to stated that in the last verse the repeats should be sung ‘Where those pratty, pratty, atty, flowers grow’.
The song is believed to be a re-modelling of a much older ballad , and the new version was written by Joe Perkins, a Holmfirth wool sorter and choirmaster, who was paid to arrange the song as a four-part harmony for the Holmfirth Choral Society.
For over a century ‘Pratty Flowers’ was sung, by all in attendance, to close the open-air concert in Victoria Park at the annual ‘Holmfirth Feast Sing’, and it became so popular locally it became known as the ‘Holmfirth Anthem’. It is still sung at local folk clubs, hunt suppers, after meet hunt sings, and the surrounding villages ‘Christmas Carol Sings’.
