SUGAR AND RUM
2007 was the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade. This is why this song was written, as a commemorative song.
ALUM FOR THE DYER
For some 300 years Alum was mined on the North East Coast and if one looks down the Coast from the height of Boulby Cliff you can see clearly the scars that have been left. It was used as a mordant in the dying of cloth until other chemical substitutes were invented in about the 1880’s when the industry came to an end. Although ‘urine’ was used in the extraction process the chorus of the song does not use the word. The words are:
“You‘re in. You’re out.
You‘re in. You‘re out.
You‘re in. You shake it all about.
That’s Alum, Alum, Alum for the Dyer.”
JOHN CURRY’S JIG
It was the custom to fill the Office of Public Hangman by reprieving a felon due to hang on the condition that he agreed to undertake that Office. One such at York was John (or William) Curry whose nickname was ‘Mutton Curry’ as he had been convicted of sheep stealing, allegedly on two occasions. The song is set at a time when the Tyburn at Knavesmire had been abandoned in favour of York Castle where one can still see ‘The Eye of York’, a large circle of grass in front of the Castle Museum, Debtors’ Prison and Law Courts. At the time oysters were a common cheap food, rather like fish and chips before the price went up!
EAST SIDERS
Whitby Harbour faces due North, unusual on the North East coast, a fact that has misled some from other parts of the same coast writing about Whitby. The Estuary of the River Esk divides Whitby. There is a West Side where the traders, merchants, shipbuilders, jet workers and all lived and the East Side where the fisher folk lived. In fact, the West Side was technically not Whitby at all but Ruswarp Parish into the twentieth century.
NEEDHAM AND WILBERFORCE
This song is as much about William Wilberforce as Ellis Needham. Wilberforce is usually remembered for his part in the campaign for the abolition of the British slave trade at a time when it was becoming commercially unviable. He is not usually remembered for drafting the anti-trades union legislation that became the Combinations Act outlawing trades unions or for his part in the establishment of the Society for the Suppression of Vice (for ‘Vice’ read ‘Free Speech’) which led to laws against libel including making some forms of libel a criminal offence, laws which have only been reviewed in the late twentieth century. These laws actively inhibited people speaking out against the abusive working practices of the time.
2007 was the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade. This is why this song was written, as a commemorative song.
ALUM FOR THE DYER
For some 300 years Alum was mined on the North East Coast and if one looks down the Coast from the height of Boulby Cliff you can see clearly the scars that have been left. It was used as a mordant in the dying of cloth until other chemical substitutes were invented in about the 1880’s when the industry came to an end. Although ‘urine’ was used in the extraction process the chorus of the song does not use the word. The words are:
“You‘re in. You’re out.
You‘re in. You‘re out.
You‘re in. You shake it all about.
That’s Alum, Alum, Alum for the Dyer.”
JOHN CURRY’S JIG
It was the custom to fill the Office of Public Hangman by reprieving a felon due to hang on the condition that he agreed to undertake that Office. One such at York was John (or William) Curry whose nickname was ‘Mutton Curry’ as he had been convicted of sheep stealing, allegedly on two occasions. The song is set at a time when the Tyburn at Knavesmire had been abandoned in favour of York Castle where one can still see ‘The Eye of York’, a large circle of grass in front of the Castle Museum, Debtors’ Prison and Law Courts. At the time oysters were a common cheap food, rather like fish and chips before the price went up!
EAST SIDERS
Whitby Harbour faces due North, unusual on the North East coast, a fact that has misled some from other parts of the same coast writing about Whitby. The Estuary of the River Esk divides Whitby. There is a West Side where the traders, merchants, shipbuilders, jet workers and all lived and the East Side where the fisher folk lived. In fact, the West Side was technically not Whitby at all but Ruswarp Parish into the twentieth century.
NEEDHAM AND WILBERFORCE
This song is as much about William Wilberforce as Ellis Needham. Wilberforce is usually remembered for his part in the campaign for the abolition of the British slave trade at a time when it was becoming commercially unviable. He is not usually remembered for drafting the anti-trades union legislation that became the Combinations Act outlawing trades unions or for his part in the establishment of the Society for the Suppression of Vice (for ‘Vice’ read ‘Free Speech’) which led to laws against libel including making some forms of libel a criminal offence, laws which have only been reviewed in the late twentieth century. These laws actively inhibited people speaking out against the abusive working practices of the time.