Bonzer Words!: Hull And Halifax And Hell
...I first heard it in a folk club in an otherwise forgettable pub in Bradford, in the early sixties. A couple of verses of it stayed with me for ages. I wanted to sing it but I could only remember the first and third verses. It was an annoying Yorkshire haunting. Finding the missing verses became a personal crusade...
Dermott Ryder searched for the words of the song which epitomises the character of Yorkshire working folk.
The truth of the old saying 'where there's muck there's money' is a well-demonstrated and ecologically shameful fact. It comes from a time when the ruling class condemned the new working class, recently emerged from rural bondage, to the slavery, squalor, danger, long working hours and low pay of the factory systems of the industrial revolution.
This iniquitous blot on our social history was the powerhouse of the British Empire, ruled over by the frumpy, humourless Widow of Windsor. It was a time when the rich got richer and lived 'in England's green and pleasant land' and the poor lived in hope of 'the countenance divine' but died in the grim shadows of 'the dark satanic mills' or on the gibbets of Hull and Halifax.
The trouble was there was too much muck for the workers and never enough money for the bosses. Then of course, with the passing of time, there were downturns, strikes, lockouts, pit, mill and factory closures, riots and mass unemployment to relieve the tedium of soul-destroying work. Inevitably, several wars intervened to bring the industries back into profit and to solve the unemployment problem, later to soak up the excess population of the 'great unwashed' so that post war short time and half-pay would be easier to manage.
However, the futile belligerence of the underclass always seems to produce a goodly number of pertinent poems and singable songs. This particular melodic manifestation of struggle and protest is a powerful social comment as it captures exploitation, misery and revolt. In addition it is a geography lesson, something of a travelogue, as it names most of the major towns of Yorkshire. The writer of the original poem, Dr Frederick William Moorman [1872-1919], was a devotee of Yorkshire dialect poetry. Bradford folk activist, Dave Keddy, composed the tune in 1960.
I first heard it in a folk club in an otherwise forgettable pub in Bradford, in the early sixties. A couple of verses of it stayed with me for ages. I wanted to sing it but I could only remember the first and third verses. It was an annoying Yorkshire haunting. Finding the missing verses became a personal crusade. For a short time I was quite manic about it. Then, after a diligent search of musical pubs, folk clubs, guitar circles and song swaps, I got the rest of the words.
It's hard when folks can't find the work
where they were bred and born,
when I was young I always thought
why I'd bide with roots and corn.
But I've been forced to work in towns,
so here's my litany,
from Hull and Halifax and Hell,
Good Lord deliver me.
When I was courting Mary Jane,
th'old Squire he said one day,
I've got no room for wedded folk
so choose, wilt tha wed or stay?
But I couldn't leave the lass that I loved
so to town we had to flee.
From Hull and Halifax and Hell,
Good Lord deliver me.
I've worked in Leeds and Huddersfield
and I've earned honest brass.
In Bradford, Keighley, Rotherham
well I've kept me bairns and me lass.
I've travelled all three Ridings round
and once I went to sea.
From forges mills and coaling boats,
Good Lord deliver me.
I've walked at night through Sheffield lanes,
was same as being in hell,
where furnaces thrust out tongues of flame
and they roared like winds on 't fell.
I've dug up coal in Barnsley Pit
with muck up to me knees.
From Sheffield, Barnsley, Rotherham,
Good Lord deliver me.
I've seen fog creep across Leeds Brig,
as thick as workhouse soup.
I've lived where folk are stowed away
like rabbits in a coup.
I've seen snow float down Bradford Beck
as black as ebony.
From Hunslet, Holbeck, Whipsey Slack,
Good Lord deliver me.
But now the children have all fledged,
to country we've come back.
And there's forty miles of heathery moor
twixt us, and coal pits slack.
So as I sit be fire at night
I laugh and shout wi' glee.
From Hull and Halifax and Hell,
Good Lord deliver me.
This tale of hardship and stoic resistance contributes to Yorkshire's reputation as the careful county. The Yorkshire man's cautious nature is evident in advice to his son, 'hear all see all say nowt, eat all sup all pay nowt, and if ever tha does owt fa nowt allus do it for thee sen'... As for Hull and Halifax, nuf sed…
© Dermott Ryder
Dermott writes for Bonzer magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
