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To be a Fisher Boy

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Alternative title: (To be a Farmer's Boy - Parody)

Performer: Hartland, Ray
Place Collected: Eldersfield
Date collected: 1978
Collector: Davies, Gwilym

This song is a parody of The Farmer’s Boy, a song well-known to English audiences.  Mr Hartland’s version may be self-composed.  The quality of the recording does not allow all the words to be recovered but nevertheless is worth including in this collection because of the subject matter.  Fishing for elvers was once a familiar activity on the River Severn in Gloucestershire and in the 1970s it was still possible to have an elver supper in some riverside pubs.  A drop in the volume of the catch plus the fact that most elvers caught nowadays go for export means that selling elvers in the streets of Gloucestershire is a thing of the past but must have been in full swing in Mr Hartland’s younger days.

 

Notes by Gwilym Davies 15 June 2016