Betty Redshaw, 1931– ?
At some point in 1954 – the precise date is unknown – Peter Kennedy recorded just one song from a young singer called Betty Redshaw, at West Wickham. This is between Croydon and Orpington, and has been part of the London Borough of Bromley since 1965. Betty herself may not have given Kennedy a title for the song: he referred to it at various times as ‘He comes down our alley’, ‘Still I love him’, and ‘Still I luvs him’. Kennedy notes that the song had been “learned from her sailor grandfather whose family lived alongside the River Thames at Gravesend in Kent. He kept a notebook of all the old songs and shanties he heard from the sailors who came into the London docks”.1
Kennedy notes that Betty Redshaw was 22 years old and that, although she was living in West Wickham, she had been born at Friern Barnet (to the North of Muswell Hill).2 She must have been the Betty M. Redshaw whose birth was registered in the fourth quarter of 1931 in the Barnet district of Middlesex, mother’s maiden name Cannon. Her parents, Eustace Clifford Redshaw and Doris Rose Cannon, had married in Barnet a couple of years earlier, in 1929. Her mother was a shop assistant at the time of the 1921 census, and had been born in 1898 in Friern Barnet. Her father was born in Gravesend in 1905, and brought up on Dartford.
In September 1939 they were living at 51 Chestnut Avenue, Bromley, with Eustace’s older sister Constance Winnett Redshaw. Eustace’s occupation was Master Printer. Also on the Register at the same address was one person marked “The record for this person is officially closed”. This would almost certainly have been their daughter Betty, then aged just seven. Given that the record is closed, it’s possible that Betty is still alive today.
Almost certainly she would have been the Betty Redshaw whose name was mentioned by the Bromley & West Kent Mercury, 8th January 1943, as one of the schoolchildren who took part in a Christmas pageant (and parish tea) at West Wickham Parish Church. And possibly she was the Betty Redshaw who married William E. Clarke in the Deptford district in the final quarter of 1953. If so, then she would actually have been Mrs Clarke rather than Miss Redshaw when Peter Kennedy met her – if indeed Kennedy did record her in 1954. Reg Hall, who has studied the often inconsistent and incomplete records of Kennedy’s field collecting sessions comments that “This session is probably out of sequence as the day and the month are not known”.3 Perhaps, with the records having become muddled, Kennedy assigned the wrong year to the recording session.
Charles James Redshaw, 1867–1942
The grandfather from whom Betty Redshaw learned the song ‘He comes down our alley’ must have been Charles James Redshaw, born in Faversham on 21st February 1867. His parents were Thomas James Redshaw and Caroline, née Watson. Both had been born locally: Caroline in Gravesend, 1835, and Thomas c1829 in neighbouring Milton. Thomas served in the Merchant Navy. The 1871 census found them residing at 2 Shurbutt Street, Poplar, in the heart of London’s docklands. Thomas must have been away at sea, while Caroline was described as “Seamans wife”. Ten years later, still at the same address, Thomas was at home, but not currently in work – he was listed as “Mariner (unemp)”. Fourteen-year-old Charles, meanwhile had begun work as “Dock messenger”.
In 1891, Charles was shown as the head of the household, his father having died in 1883. Charles was now working as a bookkeeper. With him in the house were his widowed mother, and John Harris, an uncle. Charles married Clara Dow Challis in Poplar in 1897. By 1901 they had moved to ‘Brightville’, Hansol Road, Bexleyheath, and had two young children – a son, Crispine (sic – actually Crispin), and daughter Constance. Charles was listed as “Author etc & book keeper”. He was shown as working on “Own account”, and was working “Partly at home”. They may have lived for a while in Gravesend: when their son Eustace – Betty’s father – was born in 1905, his birth was registered in the Gravesend district, and in 1911 nine-year-old Doris was also shown as having been born in Gravesend. But in 1907 Charles was being shown on the Jury service lists for Dartford, and in 1911 the family were living at 3 Priory Hill, Dartford. There were now four sons and two daughters. Charles was “Author, editor, and m’fctrs agent”, working in “Publishing and Jute manufacturing”. Again he was working on his own account, and partly from home.
By the time of the 1921 census the family had relocated to Sussex. They were living at 14 St Helen’s Park Road, Hastings, and Charles was now working for Jute Industries Ltd as a “Travelling Representative In Textiles & Fibres (various)”. In September 1939 Charles was listed as “Jute Merchant Retired Incapacitated”, and was living with his son Crispin, a Chartered Electrical Engineer, in Dorchester, Dorset. Their address appears to be “Dinas, Beam Wireless Street” – presumably Crispin was employed by the Marconi Company, and both worked and lived at the company’s Beam Wireless station, on the Bridport road, one mile west of Dorchester. Charles died at the age of 75 in 1942.
His notebook, where he wrote down the words “of all the old songs and shanties he heard from the sailors who came into the London docks”, was probably part of his wider antiquarian interests. In 1897 he was a founding member of the Association of Men of Kent and Kentish Men (which still exists today) and later, as reported in the St. Mary Cray, Orpington & District Times for 28th February 1908, acted as editor for the newly launched Invicta magazine. He was a member of the Dartford District Antiquarian Society, presenting a paper at a meeting in September 1911 on “the remains of Dartford Priory Infirmary”.4 Then on Saturday 19th July 1913, he took members of the Hampstead Antiquarian and Historical Society on a tour of “the churches in the two quaint Kentish villages situated in the picturesque Daren [sic] Valley, about three to four miles south of Dartford”. Clearly the visitors were pleased with what they saw:
The rain having ceased and the weather clearing up, the visitors saw before them a panorama beautiful in its simplicity, whether viewed from the heights above, the rich pastures below, or the cornfields, orchards, farms, and parks that cover its gentle slopes.5
Songs
- He comes down our alley (Still I love him) (Roud 654)
- Peter Kennedy, Folksongs of Britain and Ireland, Cassell, 1975. ↩︎
- Folktracks archive, https://folktrax-archive.org/menus/performer_r.htm ↩︎
- Reg Hall, Peter Kennedy’s Published Recordings of British & Irish Traditional Music and Related Material: An Annotated Discography, 2017, p179, https://www.efdss.org/images/past/VWMLASSETS/PDFs/peter-kennedy-discography.pdf ↩︎
- St. Mary Cray, Orpington & District Times, 22 September 1911 ↩︎
- Hampstead News, 7 August 1913 ↩︎