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 This CD of Morpeth's Music has been compiled as
an anthology of songs and tunes relating to Morpeth
in the heart of Northumberland. Itfeatures both
traditional and modern compositions, many of which
were commissioned in recent years for the Morpeth
Northumbrian Gathering, the town's annual festival,
held since 1968 on the weekend after Easter. We hope
sales of this recording will make a vital
contribution to Gathering coffers, so please respect
its copyright!
The spoken extracts from old local writers, Borough
minutes and court records interspersed amongst the
songs are read by Rod Arthur, who grew up in Morpeth
before leaving to pursue a distinguished career as
actor and writer. On television he has starred in
Prehistoric Park and appeared in Doctor Who &
Coronation Street; he has been heard often on radio
and has toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Alistair Anderson, ace concertina-player & piper,
long-time stalwart of our annual fund-raising winter
concert, was commissioned to write The Morpeth
Gathering Silver Jubilee to celebrate the 25th
festival, way back in 1992. It's played here by Paul
Knox, an excellent young exponent of the
Northumbrian smallpipes. He is a member of both the
Windy Gyle Band and fiddle trio King Cole, and has
been a judge at the Gathering.
The Hopping Proclamation (a “hopping” or “hoppins”
is a Northumbrian fair) and most of the other
extracts read by Rod Arthur on this CD are from the
Morpeth Court Rolls. These recorded the judgements
and rulings of the manorial court over centuries of
the town's history. They are used with the kind
permission of the Howard family.
The sheet music for The Morpeth Carnival Song turned
up in the archives of Morpeth Antiquarian Society.
The song was written by Tot Garvie and Harry P
Hutchinson (musical director of the Coliseum Cinema)
for the 1928 Carnival, which raised money for a new
Cottage Hospital. The song mentions the carnival
king and queen; the “man who led them to France” was
the mayor, WS Sanderson, well-known then for
organising the post-WW1 pilgrimages to France and
later for the original Sanderson Arcade development.
Kim's vocals and kazoo are backed by John Bibby, who
can't really play the tuba. For the coda Kim
provides both clog dance and concertina in true
Morpeth Minstrels style.
The Morpeth Rant, though not its original name, is
the tune which became associated with the Morpeth
Rant dance. Two versions – the older and the more
recent and famous, but still old! – are played here
by Fligarishun, a band of young local musicians who
came together in 2011 and were led by Stewart Hardy.
They appeared several times at the Gathering, across
the region and on two trips to Sweden before going
their various ways. Band members are Stewart, Hannah
Slater-Paterson, Charlotte Kennedy, Sally Graham and
Meg Wilson on fiddles, Gemma Telfer on accordion,
Tristan Selden on Northumbrian pipes & whistle and
Lucy Hoile on cello. The tune in the middle, XYZ, is
named after a champion racehorse, famous in the
region in the 19th century.
The extract from William Howitt's “Visits to
Remarkable Places” was published in 1842.
Acclaimed singer and songwriter Jez Lowe was
commissioned, for the 2012 Olympic-themed Gathering,
to write The Morpeth Olympics to celebrate the
town's own games, which ran from 1870s to 1958. The
song was actually composed in Australia! It's sung
here by Benny Graham, notable local singer and actor
as well as a regular performer and judge at the
Gathering since he was a young lad in the earliest
days of the festival. (Jez can be heard performing
it himself on his CD The Ballad Beyond.)
The New Road to Morpeth is an old pipes tune,
preceding the northern bypass by several centuries.
Matt plays Border pipes and John Bibby provides the
backing instrumentation. Special mention here is
needed for Graham Raine who devised the
now-traditional chord run in the second E minor
strain.
For the 2010 Life on the Land-themed Gathering,
Graham Stacy wrote the lyrics for The Morpeth
Drover's Song. Set to Billy Pigg's tune The Old
Drove Road, it commemorates the generations of
cattlemen and shepherds who drove their herds over
the hills from Scotland to Morpeth Market. It's sung
by the mighty Voice Male, the local choir directed
by Graham, and dedicated to Ken Allott, who sings
here but sadly passed away before the recording
could come out.
William Turner's Jig, composed in 2008 by Tim Bayley
of the renowned York Waits, frequent visitors to
Morpeth, was commissioned by the Morpeth Gathering
to commemorate the birth of the Tudor botanist
William Turner (1508-1568). Born in Morpeth, Turner
is best known for his Herball, the first
encyclopaedia of British plants. The Turner Herb
Garden in the Carlisle Park displays many of the
medicinal plants he included in his book. The York
Waits were recorded at Sand Hutton near York for
this CD.
Morpeth's Town Hutch, a massive oak box, is still in
the Town Hall Council Chamber. Dating from the early
16th Century, it formerly contained the borough's
records and treasures, plus the seven guild boxes,
which in turn contained the guilds' documents. All
seven guild aldermen had to be present to open the
seven locks to open the Hutch.
Lord Joicey's Gift/The Tricennial/Mr Vanbrugh's
Maggot and The Tolbooth Rant were commissioned in
2014 by that year's Mayor of Morpeth, Cllr Nic Best.
They mark the 300th anniversary of the building in
1714 of Morpeth Town Hall, which was designed by Sir
John Vanbrugh, architect of Castle Howard, Blenheim
Palace and Seaton Delaval Hall, and a playwright to
boot. Ray Alexander's brilliant portrayal of
Vanbrugh has been a notable feature of recent
Gatherings. The composer of the suite of tunes,
Stewart Hardy, is a renowned and brilliant fiddler,
and a great supporter of the Gathering in many
guises, as judge, performer, workshop leader and
clog musician. Special thanks to him for recording
this track in his studio.
Matt Seattle, demon Border piper, wrote The Siege of
Morpeth Castle as a commission for a Civil
War-themed Gathering in 2004. In 1644 Parliamentary
Scots were besieged in Morpeth Castle by Montrose's
Royalist Scots, to the bemusement of the bystanding
townsfolk, leaving a largely-ruined fortress and a
lot of stone cannonballs. Matt's pipes are backed up
by Kim Bibby-Wilson's whistles and John Bibby's
guitars and bass, with Oliver Cromwell on the drum.
Sawney Ogilvie's Duel with his Wife seems to be the
only pre-19th Century song that mentions Morpeth;
it's a cheery tale of domestic violence and not
exactly politically correct to modern ears. The
writer was Thomas Whittle, who lived west of the
town and was buried at Hartburn in 1736, and his
views in no way reflect those of the Gathering
Committee, nor indeed of any reasonable modern
citizen. The lyrics appear in John Bell's “Rhymes of
Northern Bards” of 1812, put to the older tune The
Worst's Past.
Morpeth Lasses in the second set by Fligarishon is
an ancient tune, as is Such A Wife As Willy Had
which precedes it. This Willy probably had no
Morpethian connection, but Kim's husband, Ian
Wilson, known to fellow rapper dancers as Willy,
might find the tune appropriate…
Renowned Highland bagpiper Dougie Pincock wrote his
Morpeth Highland Pipe Band's Salute to the Chantry
in 2006 in support of the Chantry Bagpipe Museum at
a time when it was under threat of closure from
Council cuts. Stewart Todd, who plays it here, has
been a leading member of Morpeth Highland Pipe Band
for many years. Dougie is of course director of the
world-famous Plockton School of Scottish Thingies.
My Home on the Wannie was written in the Second
World War era by Charlie Shaw, a leading light in
the Morpeth Minstrels, the local concert party which
entertained troops stationed in various locations in
and around Morpeth. The singer Alex Swailes is of
course renowned as the Morpeth Gadgy, voice and face
of the Gathering. Colin Bradford, notorious
accordionist and arranger of the musical setting,
has been a frequent competitor and judge since the
start of the festival. The composer's son, Pat Shaw,
introduced us to the song.
For the 2005 Gathering distinguished local musician
and arranger Derek Hobbs was commissioned to produce
the setting for Mary Hollon's Waltz - The Yorkshire
Hussars, to be kindly played by the Morpeth-based
and ever-popular Northumbrian Water Ellington
Colliery Band, stalwarts of many Gathering
Saturdays. After the Morpeth composer Mary Hollon
died in 1877 her husband Richard gave money for an
annuity for the poor of the town, in thanks for
which the townsfolk erected the Hollon Fountain in
the Market Place in 1885. Many thanks to John
Colvine for the band's recording and to Janet Brown
for unearthing the long-lost piano score in depths
of the Morpeth Antiquarian Society's collections.
Jenny Armstrong was the last of a Morpeth dynasty
who rang the curfew bell each evening from the
town's historic Clock Tower and was often at
loggerheads with the Borough Council and the
changeringers' society. The song was written in the
1960s when Jenny was threatened with being replaced
by an electric carillon. Fortunately this didn't
happen and the curfew is still rung each night– as
demonstrated in the last track on this CD. New
Voices are a well-known local community choir, led
here by Anne Suggate, who arranged the song for
them.
Roy Hugman's tunes The Northumbrian Lass and Spring
Flowers for Emily remember Emily Davison, the famous
suffragette who died from injuries received beneath
the hooves of the King's Horse during the Derby at
Epsom on June 4th 1913 and was buried in St Mary's
Churchyard in Morpeth. Her recent centenary was
widely marked in Northumberland as well as in London
and Epsom. This set, completed by Roy's tune Morpeth
Castle, is played by Pipers Fancy, a group of
members of the Northumbrian Pipers' Society, which
has kept the Northumbrian smallpipes flame burning
for nearly a century. The group were Susan Craven,
Ann Sessoms, Dorothy Cragg, Brian Leahy, Gill
Sergeant and Barry Say. The recording was made on
location in North Shields without a safety net. The
seconds for the first tune in the set were composed
by Ann Sessoms.
James, the father of William Banks referred to in
Rod's spoken piece, taught Robert Whinham to play
the fiddle and dance. Another local wait was John
Peacock, the great Northumbrian piper, reputedly a
Morpeth man. His pipes are displayed in the Morpeth
Chantry Bagpipe Museum and his smallpipes tunebook,
a Favorite Collection (c.1810), is still a bible for
local musicians.
Whinham's Reel is the best-known of many tunes by
local fiddler and dancing master, Robert Whinham
(1814-1893), who was much celebrated for his music
in the town and far beyond for many years, yet wound
up dying in Morpeth Workhouse (where the splendid
baroque telephone exchange now stands). John Bibby
plays both guitars here, but not at the same time.
Morpeth Lodgings is a 19th Century song reflecting
the sad fact that Morpeth was best known in the area
then for being the seat of the County Jail, where
many a disorderly drunk wound up spending a few days
at Queen Victoria's pleasure. The Courthouse remains
of the John Dobson-designed prison complex. Graham
Stacy again arranged the song for the serried ranks
of Voice Male.
Morpeth's Curfew Bell is rung every night at eight
o'clock in the evening by the younger members of
Morpeth Clock Tower Bellringers, continuing the
medieval tradition, though strangely few townsfolk
these days obey it and go to bed at that time. The
bells have been rung from the Clock Tower since the
beginning of the 18th century. For this recording
Meg Wilson did the honours.
The Morpeth Northumbrian Gathering Committee wishes
to give heartfelt thanks to all the performers on
this recording, who gave up their time so willingly,
and to everyone who has helped with the project.
Thanks also to those out there who (we hope) buy it
and make a vital contribution to keeping this
festival of things Northumbrian going as it
approaches its half-century.
Thanks to Arts Council England for funding over the
years towards several of the Gathering's
commissioned pieces used on the recording. Thanks
also to the Howard Family for kind permission to use
extracts from the Morpeth Court Rolls, a microfilm
copy of which is available for reference in Morpeth
Library. This copy was funded by Morpeth Antiquarian
Society, the Gathering Committee's parent body,
Registered Charity no. 507640. Gift Aid donations
are very welcome! Thanks to the Mackay Family for
the use of the extract from the Morpeth Herald.
Spoken extracts quoted in MAS publications: “The
Medieval Guilds of Morpeth” by Roland Bibby (No. 12)
and “Morpeth's Market”edited by Janet Brown (No 18).
Song lyrics from this CD (plus a couple of bonus
tracks) can be found on the Gathering website
www.northumbriana.org.uk .
Further recordings featuring Morpeth-related
material include: Sandra Kerr's Emily Davison songs
on “Sing Emily, Sing Liberty” by Werca's Folk; Terry
Conway's song The Bus Tae Morpeth on “Premier” by
Liz Law & Terry Conway; James Hill's tune Beeswing
on “The Lads Like Beer”(various artists)
Tracks on Morpeth's Music
CD
1 MORPETH GATHERING SILVER JUBILEE (Alistair
Anderson) Paul Knox 2.28
2 HOPPING PROCLAMATION (Morpeth Court Rolls 1715)
Rod Arthur 0.11
3 MORPETH CARNIVAL SONG (Tot Garvie & Harry P
Hutchinson 1928) Kim Bibby-Wilson 2.11
4 OLD MORPETH RANT/XYZ/MORPETH RANT (trad)
Fligarishon 5.23
5 TOWN IN A DREAM (William Howitt, 1842) Rod Arthur
0.05
6 MORPETH OLYMPICS (Jez Lowe) Benny Graham 4.57
7 NEW ROAD TO MORPETH (trad, arr. Seattle & Raine)
Matt Seattle 1.49
8 DIRT AND … (Morpeth Court Rolls 1723) Rod Arthur
0.15
9 MORPETH DROVER’S SONG (Billy Pigg/Graham Stacy)
Voice Male 2.55
10 MUSIC AND THE TOWN WAITS (Morpeth Court Rolls
1701) Rod Arthur 0.24
11 WILLIAM TURNER’S JIG (Tim Bayley) The York Waits
2.25
12 TOWN HUTCH (Dacre Statutes 1523) Rod Arthur 0.23
13 LORD JOICEY’S GIFT/THE TRICENTENNIAL/MR
VANBRUGH’S MAGGOT/
THE TOLBOOTH RANT (Stewart Hardy) Stewart Hardy 5.44
secs
14 WAITS AND LIVERIES (Morpeth Court Rolls 1718) Rod
Arthur 0.17
15 THE SIEGE OF MORPETH CASTLE (Matt Seattle) Matt
Seattle 3.44
16 DUCKING STOOL (Morpeth Court Rolls 1708) Rod
Arthur 0.05
17 SAWNEY OGILVIE’S DUEL WITH HIS WIFE (Thomas
Whittle) John Bibby 3.07
18 FAIR ON ASCENSION DAY (Hodgson/Woodman) Rod
Arthur 1.12
19 SUCH A WIFE AS WILLY HAD/MORPETH LASSES (trad)
Fligarishon 4.05
20 MORPETH HIGHLAND PIPE BAND’S SALUTE TO THE
CHANTRY (Dougie Pincock) Stewart Todd 1.50
21 MY HOME ON THE WANNIE (Charles E Shaw) Alex
Swailes & Colin Bradford 2.31
22 MARY HOLLON’S WALTZ - THE YORKSHIRE HUSSARS (Mary
Hollon, arr. Derek Hobbs) Northumbrian Water
Elllington Colliery Band 4.16
23 BELLRINGERS (Morpeth Court Rolls 1712) Rod Arthur
0.23
24 JENNY ARMSTRONG (John Bibby, arr. Anne Suggate)
New Voices 2.38
25 THE NORTHUMBERLAND LASS/SPRING FLOWERS FOR EMILY
/MORPETH CASTLE (Roy Hugman) Pipers Fancy 3.34
26 WILLIAM BANKS (Morpeth Herald, 1921) Rod Arthur
0.27
27 WHINHAM’S REEL (Robert Whinham) John Bibby 2.05
28 DISTURBER OF THE PEACE (Morpeth Court Rolls 1716)
Rod Arthur 0.09
29 MORPETH LODGINGS (Marshall Cresswell, arr. Graham
Stacy) Voice Male 4.13
30 CURFEW BELL Rung by Meg Wilson 0.32 |
