Chime Child

I am not a musician, nor an expert, nor an academic student in the matter of these old songs. I sang them myself for my own enjoyment and therefore they comprise a cross-section of rescued melodies dating back to medieval days and up to the Victorian early ballads. Very few can be less than a hundred years old, many of my fellow singers reaching back to a youth spent in George IV’s reign, and I do not think they have been collected before. To those who love old songs and their singers I hope they will give as much pleasure as I found in sixty years and more of listening to, and singing, their songs and sharing their company.Among many country people there still lingers the age-old dislike of being mentioned by name. ‘I’ll sing for ‘ee gladly but yew mustn’t put my name to it.’ I have, therefore, out of respect for this feeling and those of friends and relatives, substituted other names for those of the singers described.

• Foreword Faith Sharp 1. The Chime Children 2. ‘Old Shepherd’ 3. A Taunton Trio 4. ‘Gillavor’ 5. William Webber 6. Two Aunties and a Great-Great-Granny 7. Annie’s Granny 8. Richard Garland, the Sedgemoor Soldier 9. Delilah Odcombe 10. Seafarers from the Severn Sea 11. Mrs. Cordelia Cooper 12. Mr. Barry, the Ballad Singer 13. Isaiah Sully. The Music of the Songs