Ramsgate – Kent Trad: songs sung in Kent

Collected by S. Elizabeth Bird

‘Lord Randal’ in Kent: The Meaning and Context of a Ballad Variant, Folklore, Vol. 96, No. 2 (1985), pp. 248-252, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1259648

Roud 10, Child 12

Lord Randal Download

“When performing the song, the informant usually stresses the third line of each stanza heavily and melodramatically, until the final stanza, which takes on a slightly maudlin tone”.

S. Elizabeth Bird had this from her father-in-law, Douglas Tobin. She noted that “I have heard him sing the song often”. A version of the classic Child Ballad ‘Lord Randal’, it is closely related to the variant usually known as ‘Henry, my son’ – although the name Henry is not used here. This version is also unusual in identifying gypsies as the poisoners – usually the main character has been poisoned by a relative, normally his father, or a sister.

My informant recalls that he first heard the song as a small child, remembering that his older sister sang it often, with the same emphases. His 32-year-old son recalls his aunt using the threat, ‘I’ll sell you to the gypsies,’ when he and his brothers misbehaved as children. Furthermore, the informant remembers that in his community, gypsies were more than a fearful symbol, but were a very real presence, at least for part of the year. Born in 1922, he spent his childhood in Ramsgate, Kent, a hop-growing county that every summer attracted large numbers of itinerant hop pickers, including many gypsies. Gypsies would often visit houses to tell fortunes, sell clothes-pegs and other items, and the informant remembers ‘one woman in particular, or maybe it’s just a picture of a gypsy woman type – dark, dressed in unusual, bright scarves and big earrings.’ The children were warned to stay away from the gypsies, who ‘stole children’ and ‘were dirty.’ In thinking about the song, the informant said that ‘it certainly seemed to be part of that general thing; you had to be wary of gypsies.’ He added that although his sister sang the song jauntily, she would ‘try to scare us with the snakes and gypsies bits.’

The informant’s sister does not recall any role in initiating the change of the central evil character in the song; in fact she does not recall where she learned it herself. So it cannot be known when the addition of the gypsies motif took place.

Douglas Tobin had two sisters, both several years older than him – Marjorie (born 1909) and Eileen (born 1912).

‘Henry, my son’ has been collected in both England and Ireland. When the Irish singer Frank Harte recorded the song on his 1967 Topic LP Dublin Street Songs the album notes stated that “This inelegant version, now first recorded, is still popular among Dublin schoolchildren”. Given that Douglas Tobin’s father John was born in County Galway, it is possible that his version had an Irish origin. However the song was known elsewhere in East Kent in the same period: George Spicer learned his version while working in the Dover area, 1928-1935, from Tommy Goodban at The Wheatsheaf at Martin.

Stephen Douglas Tobin, 5 February 1922–5 July 2008

In 1985 the anthropologist S. Elizabeth Bird published an article in Folklore entitled ‘Lord Randal in Kent: The Meaning and Context of a Ballad Variant’¹. The version of the ballad which she discusses was one she had heard sung by her father-in-law “Douglas Tobin, 61, of Bath, England, who was born and grew up in Ramsgate, Kent”.

He was born on 5^th February 1922, the son of John Joseph Tobin and Alice, née Porter, and his birth was registered in the Thanet District. John Tobin had been born on 1^st December 1880 in Cashel, County Galway, Ireland, and he married Alice Porter in Islington in 1905. The 1911 census found Alice, with two young children, living with her father Charles Porter at 208 Liverpool Road Islington. John Tobin is not listed in this household; he was presumably working elsewhere, but it has not so far been possible to positively identify him in census records. Nor can the Tobins be found in the 1921 census.

Clearly the family had moved to Thanet by early 1922. A newspaper court report in 1931 stated that John Tobin lived at 181 High Street, and that he “came to Ramsgate some ten years ago”². The case in question involved Tobin having stolen timber to the value of £6 from the Thanet Timber Company over the course of five months. When taken to the police station he said “I am sorry; it will not occur again”. He pleaded guilty at the Ramsgate magistrates’ court, although he disputed that all of the wood had been stolen – some, he said, had been purchased legitimately.

Asked what was known of the accused, Inspector Baldwin said the man was aged 50 years, was married and had eight children, four of whom were working. He had worked as a miner and labourer, and last year was employed by the Corporation. For 23 weeks he was unemployed, and then set up in business as a firewood dealer. There were no previous convictions against him.

[…]

The chairman (Dr. Archibald) said accused was known to many of them by sight and it was a most unfortunate case. There was no excuse for what he had done and he might have involved his partner in serious trouble. However, his record was good and he had expressed regret of his one lapse. The magistrates proposed, therefore, to be lenient as it was his first offence and he was no longer young. He would be bound over for one year to be of good behaviour in his own surety of £5. They hoped he would go straight and would prove worthy of the confidence which had be placed in him. Accused would have to pay the costs, 15s.³

John Tobin died in 1935 following an operation at the age of 54. His address at the time of his death was still 181 High Street, Ramsgate. A report in the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 27 July 1935, stated that the funeral service was held at the Catholic church of St Augustine’s in Ramsgate, but he was buried at St Michael’s cemetery, Weston, Bath. The newspaper report on John Tobin’s death is headed “BATHONIAN’S FATHER”, and describes him as “father of Mr. William John Tobin, of 6, Stanley Place, Twerton, Bath”. William, the eldest child of John and Alice Tobin, had married in Bath in 1928 and is listed in electoral registers for Bath from that year onwards; in the 1939 Register he was listed as “Fish Caterer”, still living at 6 Stanley Place, Bath.

Douglas Tobin’s name appears among prize-winners at St Augustine’s Roman Catholic School from 1932 to 1935, as reported in the Thanet Advertiser. But it appears that, following his father’s death, the whole family followed William to Bath. The Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette, 19^th August 1939, lists Douglas Tobin as having achieved First Class in that May’s Woodwork exams at Bath Technical College. And a few weeks later, when the 1939 Register was compiled, we find Alice Tobin, with seven of her children including Douglas, living at 39 Newbridge Hill, Bath. Her 25 year old son Alfred is listed as “Fish Fryer”, while 26 year old Eileen is “Fish Fryer Assistant”; presumably they were working at the fish shop run by their brother William.

Douglas’ occupation in 1939 was given as “Apprentice Cabinet Making & Finishing”. A brief notice in the East Kent Times and Mail, 29^th June 1966, reports that

Ramsgate-born Mr. Stephen D. Tobin, 44, who joined the Co-operative Society last year as manager of its Enfield cabinet factory, has now, under a reorganisation of the society’s furniture division, been placed in charge of both the Enfield factory and the London bedding factory.
Mr. Tobin served his apprenticeship with Bath Cabinet Makers, with whom he became assistant works manager, and later planning and production controller.

He married Ruby Brain in 1947 and, according to familysearch.org, he died in Somerset on 15^th July 2008.

Songs

Lord Randal (Roud 10)

S. Elizabeth Bird, ‘Lord Randal’ in Kent: The Meaning and Context of a Ballad Variant, Folklore,
Vol. 96, No. 2 (1985), pp. 248-252. Accessible from https://www.jstor.org/stable/1259648 ↩︎
Thanet Advertiser, 22 May 1931 ↩︎
East Kent Times and Mail, 20 May 1931 ↩︎