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Introduction
In October, 1972, Charles Parker, a friend and colleague who, at the time, was
employed by the BBC as a radio features producer, sent us a tape-recording of a
song called "The Handy Barque the Campaņero". The singer was Ben Bright, a
retired seaman who lived in Edmonton in North London. Parker, a skilful field
worker, suggested that there were hidden depths in Bright that might yield rich
rewards to a patient and persistent folklorist. Accordingly, armed with
recording equipment, we set out on a prospecting trip to 59 Salisbury Road,
London, N. 22.
The 76 year old ex-seaman met us at the door and led us up the two flights of
stairs to his room at breakneck speed. We arrived there breathless and set
about rigging the recording equipment while we explained the reason for our
visit. He listened politely enough but he didn't bother to hide the fact that
we were on trial. He had been gypped too often to be taken in by smoothies,
with or without tape-recorders. Until we had proved otherwise, we were
"con-artists' and he was damned if he was going to be conned again. So we
talked and talked and he listened, unconvinced. It wasn't until we mentioned
George Hardy and the International Seamen and Harbour Workers Union that our
roles were reversed. Then he talked and we listened.
At the end of three hours it had become obvious to us that we had embarked on a
recording project that would take weeks, possibly months, to complete. Ben's
working life had covered the last days of sail, the steam era and extended into
the period of diesel-driven ships. More important, it covered political
involvement in the I.W.W. in the Americas and Australia and in the trade union
movement in Britain.
Over the years we have developed a recording procedure for recording in depth.
Our first visit is to some extent a social one, an attempt to establish a
friendly working relationship. Then during the three or four subsequent
sessions we encourage the informant (horrible word) to range freely over
whatever topics come most easily to mind. At this stage we are (as it were)
attempting to create a panoramic picture of a person's life or, if they happen
to be a singer, of their repertoire. This is followed by a period during which
we pinpoint specific areas covered in previous recordings. It is during these
particular sessions that we have recorded our most remarkable material, for by
this time the person being recorded is no Ionger conscious of the microphone
and, indeed, we have known occasions when he or she has become completely
unaware of our presence.
Unfortunately, we were not given the opportunity of reaching that stage with
Ben Bright. We were still in the early stages of the project when ha left
England. We recorded him on three occasions only. Each session took place in
his rather bare two-room apartment which had the 'temporary accommodation' look
typical of the homes of Scots travellers and old seafarers. His family were all
dead or vanished without trace -- "sixty-two years is a long time to be away".
His friends, the men with whom he sailed and rode boxcars and sang Wobbly
choruses in the hobo jungles, they, too, are either dead or scattered
throughout the world.
Three sessions, but each one memorable - Ben Bright sits there across the table
from us, a short, compact, self- sufficient man still restless and hungry for
change and full of a barely suppressed anger at a society "run by bosses for
bosses". The cardboard shoebox at his elbow is crammed with photographs of men
and ships, faded seamans' papers, letters, an old union card, a dog-eared copy
of the Wobbly Songbook, a yellowing photograph of Ben standing with Elizabeth
Gurley Flynn, a song in the handwriting of T.Bone Slim: faded relics of a
vanished community in which he once played a part. He is conscious of being a
spokesman for that community. His attitude as he talks and sings into the
microphone is that of a witness for the prosecution in a fraudulent conspiracy
trial. He gives the impression of knowing that the trial is rigged in favour of
the crooked defendant but, nevertheless, he wants it put on record that he and
those with whom be sailed, were at the scene of the crime and knew what was
going on.
As for the songs, one is left with the feeling that Ben has always expected
them to work their passage -- by helping to lighten a specific act of labour,
by providing a break in the tedium of a long, hard voyage, or (as is now the
case) by having them bear witness to the fact that the crude message informing
us that KILROY WAS HERE had been scrawled by the natural victims of crimps,
con-man and shipping companies, the perpetually fleeced argonauts.
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