The Songs

1. I Was Born at Barford

1. Bird Scarer’s Cries

2. My First Employer

2. The Farmers Done Over (Roud 21259)
3. The New-Fashioned Farmer (Roud 1476)
4. Country Hirings (Roud 12510)

3. I Never Took the Communion

5. The Parson and the Sucking Pig (Roud 574; TYG 45)

4. We Labourers Had No Lack of Lords

6. The Labouring Man (Roud 1156)
7. Pity Poor Labourers (Roud V8898)
8. The Owslebury Lads (Roud 17212)

5. Those Who Owned and Held the Land

9. The Honest Ploughman (Roud 619)

6. From Crow-Scarer to Ploughboy

10. Present Times, or Eight Shillings a Week (Roud V1255)

7. It was 1835

11. Van Diemen’s Land (Roud 519; Laws L18; G/D 2:252)
12. The Sheepstealer (Roud 1667)

8. I Stayed On in the Old Home

13. Rigs of the Times (Roud 876)
14. Poor Shepherds (Roud 3323)

9. In 1847

15. Prop of the Land (Roud 1254)

10. By the End of the Sixties

16. The Fine Old English Labourer (Roud V8901)

11. The Day Was 7th February, 1872

17. My Master and I (Roud V15758)

12. At One Place, Forty-Five Men Gave in Their Names

18. Come All You Bold Fellows That Follow the Plough

13. In My Own Country

19. The Painful Plough (Roud 355; G/D 3:448)
20. The Sheep Shearing (Roud 879)

14. The Day I Entered Parliament

21. Three Acres and a Cow (Roud 24484)

15. As I Sit Here

22. The Jolly Ploughboy (Roud 202)

The songs presented here and additional songs, together with extracts from the writings of Joseph Arch (1826-1919; founder of the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, 1872) and other documents, are included in a book edited by Roy Palmer: The Painful Plough, published by Cambridge University Press.

Recorded by Dick Swettenham in Birmingham in 1971;
Notes and production by Roy Palmer;
Sleeve design by Humphrey Weightman

Musicians

The Singing Tradition (Julie West, Martyn Briggs, Bob Lapworth, Mick Nash): vocals [1, 8];
Bob Lapworth: concertina [1], guitar [5];
John Swift: vocals [2-3, 7], flat-backed lute [2-3, 7], bastard lute [5], guitar [11, 13-14];
John Rose: fiddle [3, 14];
Roy Palmer: vocals [4-6];
Martyn Briggs: vocals [5];
The Broken Consort (Anne Crozier: concertina [6], bowed psaltery [8]; Trevor Crozier: mouth organ [6], pandora [8]; Vic Gammon: whistle [6], concertina [8]);
Mike Herring: vocals [9-10];
Mick Steele: mandolin [9];
Paul Hipkiss: vocals [11, 13];
Julie West: vocals [12]

Tracks

Side 1

1. The Painful Plough (Roud 355; G/D 3:448)
2. The Honest Ploughman (Roud 619)
3. Poor Shepherds (Roud 3323)
4. Eight Shillings a Week (Roud V1255)
5. My Master and I (Roud V15758)
6. The Owslebury Lads (Roud 17212)
7. Pity Poor Labourers (Roud V8898)

Side 2

8. We Poor Labouring Men (Roud 1394)
9. The Sucking Pig (Roud 574; TYG 45)
10. Rigs of the Times (Roud 876)
11. The Farmers Done Over (Roud 21259)
12. Sheep Shearing (Roud 879)
13. The New-Fashioned Farmer (Roud 1476)
14. Prop of the Land (Roud 1254)

All tracks trad.