Slap Dab / The Amateur Whitewasher

[ Roud 1754 ; Mudcat 4666 ; Fred Murray, Fred Leigh]

The New Arkansas Travellers sang Handy Man in a 4 February 1928 recording from Memphis, Tennessee for the 78 rpm 10" shellac record Victor 21288. This was included in 2015 on the Nehi anthology of British songs in the USA, My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean. Steve Roud noted:

The Amateur-Whitewasher was written by F. Murray and F. Leigh in 1896, and was one of the late music hall comic songs that took the people’s fancy and survived in popular performance throughout the 20^th century. A number of traditional singers included it in their repertoires. The singer [A. Bishop] clearly came from London (England) rather than Arkansas, which is fortunate as the Cockney slang would be unintelligible with an American accent.

Cyril Poacher sang Slap-Dab (Whitewash) at The Ship Inn, Blaxhall, Suffolk on 16 November 1973. That day’s recordings made by Adam Skeaping were released in 1974 on the Transatlantic album of a “sing song in a Suffolk pub”, The Larks They Sang Melodious. Another recording made by Ginette Dunn at Grove Farm, Blaxhall on 3 October 1974 was included in 1999 on Poacher’s Musical Traditions anthology Plenty of Thyme. Rod Stradling noted:

Cyril Poacher: Got that from my father. Last time I heard him sing it, he was about 84.

It was written by F Murray & F Leigh in 1896, as The Amateur Whitewasher and sung by Frank Seeley among others. There is even an American recording—by The New Arkansas Travellers (Victor 21288), recorded in Memphis, Tennessee in 1928, where the song is called Handy Man, and is delivered in a probably fake, though very creditable, Cockney accent.

Alvar Smith sang Slap Dab at Sheffield’s New Musical Traditions Club on 9 November 2025. This concert’s recording was released in May 2026 on his Veteran album of traditional singing from the Blaxhall Ship, A Sailor and His True Love. The album’s booklet noted:

A music hall song originally published under the title The Amateur Whitewasher, but known to Alvar as Slap Dab. Written by the prolific song-writing duo Fred Murray & Fred Leigh and published in 1896, the song was popularised on the stage by Frank Seeley who we are told was “causing a sensation with the song” in Halls across London in the summer of 1896. As well as being sung in Suffolk by Cyril Poacher it travelled further afield to be recorded in America by the New Arkansas Travellers, and was collected in New South Wales and Tasmania, Australia.

Lyrics

Cyril Poacher sings Slap Dab

Now, I am a very handy man,
To save a bit of my plan,
Yesterday, I said to me wife,
“The backyard want a wash,
So it do, upon me life.
So we’d better go and do the job.”
So I did and help me, Bob.
Mixed a pile of whitewash, set to work,
And the old girl helped me like an old Turk.

Chorus (after each verse):
Slap dab, slap dab, up and down the brickwork,
Slap dab all day long.
In and out the corners, round the Johnny Horners,
We were a pair of fair clean goners.
Slap! Dab! The old white brush.
Talk about a fancy ball.
I put more whitewash on the old woman
Than I did upon the garden wall!

Now, my Missus and I confessed,
She put me in a new nightdress.
A nightcap, too, she made me wear.
She was dressed like me and we looked like a pair.

Now, feeling very dry just here,
I went to get a drink of beer,
When the kids from the house next door, I think,
Attracted by the whitewash, came and had a drink.
There’s goin’ to be an inquest now,
And I’m in a dreadful row.
Now I have done my mechanical schemes,
Every night in all my dreams.