tree_and_leaf | (no subject)

Which seems like a good opportunity to post some folk songs, both on weaving: one full of working-class pride, the other - specific to the context of the jute mills in Dundee, which were particularly bad - showing the other side of the coin. And they're both testaments to a vanished world - at least in this country. The children and grandchildren of the prosperous weavers in the first song are almost certainly doing other things - even in the Borders - but while no-one on Dundee has the specific problems of Mary Brookbanks, herself a weaver, there are surely many men and women elsewhere who would recognise it. Maybe you're wearing something they made right now.

THE WORK OF THE WEAVERS
(David Shaw)

We are all met together here to sit and to crack
With our glasses in our hands and our work upon our backs
And there's not a trade among them all can neither mend nor mak
Gin it wasna for the work of the weavers

If it wasna for the weavers, what would you do
You wouldna hae cloth that's made o wool
Ye wouldna hae a coat neither black nor the blue
Gin it wasna for the work o the the weavers

The hireman chiels, they mock us and crack aye aboots
They say that we are thin faced, bleached like cloots
But yet for all their mockery, they canna do wi oots
No they canna want the work o the weavers

There's our rights and our slaters and glaziers and a'
Our doctors and ministers and them that live by law
And our friends in South America, tho them we never saw
But we know they wear the work of the weavers

There's our sailors and our soldiers, we know they're all bauld
But if they hadna clothes, faith they couldna live for cauld
The high and low, the rich and poor, a'body young and auld
They widna want the work o the weavers

There's folk that's independent of other tradesman work
The women need no barbers and dykers need no clerk
But none o them can do wi out a coat or a shirt
No, they canna want the work o the weavers

The weaving is a trade that never can fail
As longs we need a cloth to keep another hale
So let us aye be merry over a bicket of good ale
And drink a health to the weavers

- the song is relatively well known thanks to the Corries and Ewan McColl; my mother taught me it. There's also a Billy Connolly parody: 'If it wisnae for yer wellies, where wad ye be?/ You'd be in the hospingtal or the infirmaree/ You wid hae a dose o' the flu' or even the plurisee/ if it wisnae fur wearin' your wellies!'

The Jute Mill Song, Mary Brookbank

Oh dear me, the mill's guan fast
The puir wee shifters canna get a rest
Shiftin' bobbins coorse and fine
They fairly mak' ye work for your ten and nine

Oh dear me, I wish the day was done
Rinnin' up and doon the Pass it is nae fun
Shiftin', piecin', spinnin' warp weft and twine
Tae feed and clad my bairnie affen ten and nine

Oh dear me, the warld is ill divided
Them that works the hardest are the least provided
I maun bide contented, dark days or fine
For there's nae much pleasure livin' affen ten and nine