This comic song appears to be a fairly modern composition but in fact goes back nearly 200 years to a song entitled “Going to Chelsea to Buy a Bun”. According to one source, it is even earlier, having been printed as “Let me Alone” in “The Cuckoo’s Garden”, circa 1780. It was published in broadsides and printed in occasional songsters but so far as we can tell it has only been found twice in oral tradition, once in Scotland and once in Gloucestershire. Mr Hedges may have learnt it from a printed source and did not appear to know the whole song.

Notes by Gwilym Davies 23 August 2015