To Rescue A Sandgate Lass
SS053
We found the lyrics for this song in Bonny Songs of the Northern Lands, collected by Martin Shaw and Percy Dearmer, and published by J Curwen & Sons in 1912. It is the only song in the book to mention "The Snooks", and from certain local words (such as "Loggy", meaning "Butterfly") it is certain to be referring to Seaton Snook.
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As was common at the time, the lyrics would be sung to an existing tune. In this case, the song appears to be a response to The Sandgate Girl's Lamentation, and presumably utilises the same melody. As no recordings have been previously made of the song, the following recording has been made by the Archivist.
I spy’d a young maiden truly
Who come fro Sandgate town
And tho she were a bonny one
She wore a werritin frown
Her face were like an angel’s
But an angel full o’ woe
For she had marry’d a keelman
Nee wonder she were sore
Ye’ve a lovely body, as fair as a loggy
And far too good fer him
So oway down to the Snooks, lass
An I will tek you in
She thought to go to Newcastle
And hide among the crowd
But a keelman has his bully boys
Who quickly had her found
They brought her back to Sandgate Street
And layc’d her til she were blue
Then gave her back to the Keelman
Who layc’d her proper, too
Ye’ve a lovely body...
She went to church on a Sunday
And pray’d He’d set her free
She tried to tell the father but
The father wouldn’t see
He telt her she were wicked and
She shouldn’t cheek her man
So hyem she went to Sandgate Street
Wi nowhere else to gan
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Ye’ve a lovely body...
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One Friday come a Tan-Toby
Who said he’d help her out
He give her a bunch o’ monkshood
And didn’t charge her nowt
She cook’d it into the broth and when
He come in through the door
He said he wanted fish the night
And chuck’d it on the floor
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Ye’ve a lovely body...
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If I was yuer husband
I’d never raise me hand
I’d buy you bonny frocks and watch you
Dance upon the sands
There’s blueys fer us breakfast and
There’s winkles fer us tea
I’d keep you safe from the keelman
As happy as can be.
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Ye’ve a lovely body...
saw
from
pretty
worried
no
butterfly
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come
take
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colleagues
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beat
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told
talk back to
home
go
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gypsy/rag-and-bone man
Aconitum or Wolfsbane, a poisonous plant
didn't charge her anything
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threw
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your, pronounced "You-er"
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more common in the N.E. than "beach"
lobster
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Click for scans of the original lyric sheets
One interesting point is the use of the word "lace" meaning to "beat" someone. Bill Griffith's superb Dictionary of North East Dialect (2nd Ed., Northumbria University Press, 2005) suggests that the word originated in Easington in the mid C20, but its inclusion here suggests an earlier origin further down the County Durham coast.
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The words also refer to "Sandgate Town" being the home of the keelman, but there was in fact no such place - Sandgate was a suburb on the East side of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and there was a Sandgate Street, but Sandgate was never a real town.
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It should be noted that such dialect-heavy lyrics were more likely to have been written by self-styled "Dialect poets"* than as songs that were actually sung by ordinary folk, which may explain why no recordings or mentions of the song could be found.
The Sandgate Girl's Lamentation
The song to which this is a response, The Sandgate Girl's Lamentation, was first collected by John Bell for his anthology Rhymes of Northern Bards in 1812. A beautiful performance of this song by Maureen Craik from 1965 follows.
In the lament, the girl from Sandgate (a shipping village on the Tyne) bemoans her having ended up married to a keelman. Keelmen were men who transported coals from the banks of the Tyne and the Wear to the waiting collier ships, using large, shallow-bottomed boats called keels (due to the shallowness of the rivers). The Keelmen were a tight-knit community who lived in Sandgate, a particularly poor and overcrowded part of Newcastle. They had a reputation amongst some as being rough, uncouth, and aggressive, a reputation which this song seems to uphold.
From New Voices - An Album of First Recordings (Topic, 12T125, 1966)
Click to open lyric sheet
*Roud, S.: Folk Song in England (London: Faber, 2017).