Remembering previous evenings with Dr. Richard Churchley we expected a wonderful evening and we were not disappointed!

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 Over the course of the evening, Richard performed 13 songs to his own musical accompaniment, performed on a variety of instruments ranging from a cittern to a harmonica.  Each song was accompanied by an explanation of its historical context with much fascinating detail. He began with work songs, such as “Buy broom besoms” - a song from Northumberland performed by sellers of brooms made of heather in the street markets of that county.   There were a couple of sea shanties and a fascinating Welsh ditty - “Cosher Bailey’s Engine”, all about the real and imaginary exploits of the 19th century South Wales ironmaster Crawshay Bailey.  In many cases, the audience was invited to join in the chorus!

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Talking of choruses, perhaps the most interesting part of the evening included two music hall songs from the 19th century – “Two Lovely Black Eyes” and “Daisy Bell”.  In both cases, people are familiar with the choruses, but do not know that the words of the verses are satires on contemporary issues.  “Two lovely black eyes”, by Charles Coburn, is about a chap who switches his support from the Tories under Disraeli to the Liberals under Gladstone, and has his eyes blacked by the opposition in each case, the moral of the story being “Keep out of political arguments”.  The W"Daisy Bell" of Harry Dacre’s song is actually Daisy, Countess of Warwick, one of the mistresses of Edward VII, and the performances at the music hall were probably accompanied by much sly winking and nudging.  One interesting aspect is a slighting reference in one of the verses to an early health and safety requirement, namely to have a front and rear lamp on one’s bicycle!

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At the end of a really entertaining evening we had a short discussion.

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