The Hoy at Anchor Folk Club
HOY SONGS
These songs have been written by Hoy Members.
If you would like to add any material to these pages, please let me know.
Rolling up, rolling down,
We’ll all get drunk in Tilbury Town
In twenty four hours we'll turn around
And go rolling down the river
The work is
good and the wages fine
When you take a trip on a container line
The cargo
comes in TEUs
That's a twenty-foot box boys filled with booze
When I
first saw a TEU
I wondered where they stored the crew
There’s a
Tilbury girl called Kettle Jane,
First on the boil then off again,
She’s got a
friend called Teapot Anne
When she's well brewed she'll take a man
Those
Tilbury girls go round in pairs
You'll never catch them unawares
But at the
dockyard gates when the work is done
You can pick 'em up boys, one by one
© Jack Forbes 1982
I wrote and recorded the song 'Rolling down the
River' in 1982 for a radio programme
about Tilbury Docks. It has since been used in an Educational Drama production,
a Folk Theatre presentation and also as a Morris Dance, as well as being sung
all over the world.
It can be heard wherever there are shanty sessions at folk festivals and
festivals of the sea.
There is an American version and a Polish version (sung of course in Polish).
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The Old Leigh Regatta
Early in September on a Sunday
Down Church Hill I made my way
To see the country dancing and hear the band
play
At the Old Leigh Town Regatta
Down, down won't you come down
Down
to the Regatta in Old Leigh Town ?
Down, down won't you come down
To
the Old Leigh Town Regatta?
The Admiral was there, he was looking very sleek
With a gang of navigators to guide him up the
creek
When they all fell in the mud, they said you'd
smell 'em for a week
At the Old Leigh Town Regatta
There were sideshows, guideshows, roundabouts
and swings
Football, tug-o-war and other sporty things
I'd 've climbed the greasy pole if I'd had a
pair of wings
At the Old Leigh Town Regatta
You could see the Thameside Mummers, the
flotilla floating by
Or go and have a try on the coconut shy
I saw a man in the stocks, he was looking very
dry
At the Old Leigh Town Regatta
The Cockleshell Clog, they looked so neat
All fancy clothes and flying feet
Then someone shouted: "Terry, you've missed a
beat!"
At the Old Leigh Town Regatta
Borderdash Morris, they danced along
They looked so bright their faces shone
And when they started singing, then I was gone
At the Old Leigh Town Regatta
The Slow Loris Band, they came and went
They played so loud, you could hear 'em in Kent
But they sounded much better in Martin's tent
At the Old Leigh Town Regatta
There were folk songs and joke songs easy on the
ear
And the band kept playing as the crowd
disappeared
And everybody said they'd be back again next
year
To the Old Leigh Town Regatta
(C) Jack Forbes February 1976
911
Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews
People just like me and you
No matter how they learned to pray
They went to meet their gods that day
Flights of fancy, flights of joy
Filled with old men, girls and boys
The skies were filled as ne’er before
Turned into the tools of war
Two proud brothers stood so tall
But pride it comes before a fall
Into their bodies terror flew
The world stood by and asked “What shall we do ?”
How can we teach our sons and daughters
A lesson from this needless slaughter
An eye for eye is what we seek
Or should we turn the other cheek
Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews
People just like me and you
No matter how they learned to pray
They went to meet their gods that day
(c) Tony Prior
8th October 2001
Home for Christmas
Dear
Nancy I’m writing to tell you,
That I’ve joined up, I knew you’d be proud
We’re leaving Old Blighty tomorrow,
That’s me and the Old Leigh Town crowd
There’s
Matty the lad from Horse Hill love,
And young Mark, my best mate from school
With Lucas from up on The Broadway,
Our mums will be proud of us all
They said
we’d be home for Christmas,
Then we’d all be done with this war
They said we’d be home for Christmas,
But Nancy now I’m not so sure
Dear
Nancy I’m writing to tell you,
The fighting it has just begun
And when those big guns start a-firing,
There’s none of us knows where to run
Poor Mark
lad, he just couldn’t take it,
He snapped and ran off in the night
They held a Court Martial next morning,
When they shot him he shivered with fright
They said
we’d be home for Christmas,
Then we’d all be done with this war
They said we’d be home for Christmas,
But Nancy now I’m not so sure
Dear
Nancy I’m stuck in this trench love,
This past year we’ve not got that far
They won’t let me say where it is love,
But the Germans they know where we are
So it’s
over the top we are going,
To face all the shells and gun-fire
Matty and Luke went in the last wave,
But they didn’t get past the barbed wire
They said
we’d be home for Christmas,
Then we’d all be done with this war
They said we’d be home for Christmas,
But Nancy now I’m not so sure
Dear
Nancy I’m writing to tell you
Private William was brave to the core
But his Majesty regrets to inform you
That he’s not coming home anymore
They said
he’d be home for Christmas
Then he’d be done with this war
They said he’d be home for Christmas
But Nancy now I’m not so sure
(c) Tony Prior July 2016
There's a Plaice in Heaven
In eighteen hundred and
forty-three
Pull those oars man,
pull them true
The wind blew o’er
a raging sea
There’s a place in heaven for you
No Leigh man dared to fish that day
Pull those oars man, pull them true
‘Cept Michael Tomlin they do say
There’s a place in heaven for you
Pull those oars man, pull them true,
There’s a place in- heav’n for you
Pull those oars man, pull them true,
There’s- a- place in heaven for you
When he got back to Billet Wharf
Pull those oars man, pull them true
Cook’s van had just made off
There’s a place in heaven for you
He knew those fish must be delivered
Pull those oars man, pull them true
To Blackwall up the London River
There’s a place in heaven for you
So he rowed all day on the
flooding tide
Pull those oars man, pull them true
Til Blackwall Wharf came into sight
There’s a place in heaven for you
And he sold those fish there every one
Pull those oars man, pull them true
And then he turned and rowed for home
There’s a place in heaven for you
Tomlin he was a fisherman then
Pull those oars man,
pull them true
But he later became
a fisher of men
There’s a place in
heaven for you
And when his fishing days were o’er
Pull those oars man, pull them true
They laid him
to rest ‘neath St Clement’s Tower
There’s a place in
heaven for you
(c) Tony Prior November 2004
Michael Tomlin was born in Leigh
on Sea in 1814 and grew to be a man of huge proportions and enormous strength.
In due course, he became a fisherman and in the days when fish was sent to
London by road on Cook's van, he was determined to get a good catch of fish to Blackwall.
When he saw he had missed Cook's van, he rowed up river, a distance of some forty miles. Tomlin
then carried successive loads from to the market, a matter of a mile away and
then rowed back to Dead Man's Bay at Canvey Island.
On another occasion, following the death of his daughter in London he fulfilled her dying wish by sailing his fishing boat up the Thames and bringing her body back to Leigh for burial.
Michael Tomlin spent much of his spare time to preaching the Gospel in South East Essex and later devoted his life to this end. He died in 1903 and is buried in the north west corner of the churchyard of St Clement's Parish church in Leigh.