I

neverployed to monyposh donces ,,, SconTester, musicion, 1887 - 1972

RegHoll

Musical Traditions supplementno. 2

1,990 I

Produced and published by: Musical Traditions 98 Ashingdon Road Rochford EssexSS4 1RE.

Editor: Keith Summers. rssN0265-5053

Design and desktop publishing: Graeme Kirkham.

Cover design: Tony Engle.

Cover photograph: Brian Shuel.

@Reg Hall, 1990.

First published 1990.

Printed in Great Britain.

AII rightsreseroed . N opart of thispublication may be reproduced , stored in a rctrieaalsystetn, or transmittedin anyforn or by any rneans, electronic,mechnnical, photocopying, recording or otherwix,without thepermission of theauthor and publisher, except for shortertracts for thepurposes of rersiewor academicquotation.

To my late mother,Peg, and my wife, Claire.

This book is published in coniunction with a double LP, ScanTester 7887-7972: I naner played to many posh ilances (Topic 2-12T45516).

The records and further information are available from: Topic RecordsLtd. 50 Stroud Green Road London N4 3EF. I

Contents

Maps ...... 4 Preface d Chapter 1 il;;;;;;;;;;;; ::: ;

PART I BIOGRAPFIY Chapter 2 1,887- Great War ...... 15 Chapter 3 GreatWar - 1,957...... 45 Chapter 4 1957-1972 ...... 57

PARTtr CONTEXT AND COMMENT Introduction .....73 Chapter 5 Dancesand dancetunes ...... 77 Chapter 6 Fiddle,concertina, melodeon and tambourine ...... 93 Chapter 7 Church bands and village bands .... 101 Chapter 8 FriendlySociety Feast Days ...... 107 Chapter 9 The'othel music ...... 109 Chapter 10 Songsand singers ...... 115 Chapter 11 Calendarcustoms ...... 119 Chapter 12 Minstrelsand carnivalbands ...... 123 Chapter 13 Classand socialconflict ...... ,....1,27 Chapter 14 The1920s and beyond...... 131 Postscript ,...... ,,..,137

Discography 739 Acknowledgements 142 Appendix A: The wider world. Sound recordingsby other musicians of tunesfrom ScanTestels recordedrepertoire ...... 143 I

AshdownForesl ond lhe suroundingoreo: ploces mentioned in the texl

. Turne/sHill . FORESTROW . Selslield

WestHoathlY'' sharPlhorne . V[chCross . Twyford . tkchgrove . . cherwoodGate . BalCOmbe . .CinderHill .ChelwoodOommon Ardingly . 'NutleY . BrownsBrook Horsted .Danehill . Keynes cacktesrre€t . . Fairwarp Mayfield . Lindfield . FiveAshes . . ShellieldPark . CUCKFIELD . HAYWARDSHEATH . . HadlowDown . Fletching . Scayne'sHill . Pilldown Cross-in-Hand. . . Newick ' ' Blackbovs' HEATHFIELD . Wivelsfield . ' chaileY lsfield . BURGESSH|LL

Horam.

5 miles

The areashown on thesemaps is coveredby OrdnanceSurvey 1:50000 sheets 787,\88,198 and 199. I

Mid-Sussex:ploces mentioned in the text . Edenbridoe

. Lingfield

. TinsleyGreen . TUNBRIDGEWELLS . coPthorne . EASTGRTNSTEAD . ThreeBridges 'CRAWLEY ---l 'RusPer . FORESTROW . Warnham

.

. HorstedKeynes CUCKFIELD

. HAYWARDSHEATH

UOKFIELD' HEATHFTELD. . BURGESSHILL

L_- __J

. Barcombe .

. . . Glynde ' . Lancing . BRIGHTON . Rottinodean

5 miles

Shown on the map opposite. I

I NEVERPLAYED TO MANY POSH DANCES,.,,

Daisy Sherlock,Scan Testet and RegHaIl at a party giuen by Mervyn and Dod Plunkett, WestHoathly, Sussex; 2 NooemberL957. I

Prefqce

his view of ScanTester and his music, which To a large extent, I have allowed Scan to speak for is published in conjunction with the double himself. His recorded conversation, transcribed album on Topic Records, is essentially my verbatim with the minimumof editing, revealsmore own. Objectivityis a difficul t stanceto maintainand, of his personality and values than I could hope to inevitably, my own biases and value judgements capfure in dry prose. The tapes of Scan speaking about music and dance in general show through. were made by Mervyn Plunkett, David Nuttall, Other people making a selection might have pro- Alan Waller, Vic Smith, Rod and Danny Stradling, duced something quite different. Hilda and Hugh Gibson and me, and I have usedour initials at the end of each quotation to indicate the My relationship with Scanwas basedon friendship source.2 and music-making, and it never occurred to me, during his lifetime, to make Scan the subject of a It is now too late to gather much first-hand evidence project, nor did I ever record him or interview him of Scan'searly days, but I have tried to verify and with that in mind. In fact, I shied away from ques- expand upon what he told me with documentary tioning him too closely as I felt, perhapsmistakenly, evidence. My searchesin archive material have in- it would have been a breach of our relationship. I cluded parish registers, licensing registers, census did, however, hope sometime to make a record of returns, ParliamentaryRegistus, Kelly's Directory of him, and Scanwas quite happy about the idea. The Sussexand the SussexExprasl held in the East recordingswere made informally in private homes SussexRecords Office in Lewes,Brighton Reference and public houses,as a bonusto what were first and Library, the University of SussexLibrary and by the foremost social events. None valued our music- RegistrarGeneralof Births,Deaths and Marriagesat making more than Scan,who consciously recalled St. Catherinds House in London, and in local church- old tunes when he knew the machine was running, yards. and once exclaimed at the end of a sessionwith his 'Cor, daughter, Daisy, and me, we're better than I am grateful to Vic Gammon and Keith Chandler for Jimmy Shand!'l encouragingme to organisemy material for publica- tion.I particularly wish to acknowledge the former, However fine and remarkable Scanwas as a musi- for the electric shock given to my dormant thoughts cian, he was not unique. He acknowledgedother on the nature of English vernacular music by his musicians he had known and played with, and, if he doctoral thesis, Popular Music in Rural Society: appearedtobe a majorfigurein themusic-makingof Sussex181.5-1914, and for the advice and criticism his locality in the latter part of his life, it was largely he has offered so freely. David Nuttall has shared becausehis old mateswere dead and gone or had with me everythinghe noted during his association given up playing in public. Scanwas not simply a with Scanin Scan'slastfew years,and hasdiscussed musician; , football, gardening, friendships Victorianand twentieth-centurypopular musicwith and his family were all important to him, and, me in the contextof his collectionof printed dance although he was not particularly mechanically music. Phil Lucas from Danehill, a local historian minded, he could turn his hand to pretfy well any- with his feet set firmly in the working life of the area thing practicalto earn his living. His life was spent and with close family and neighbourhood connec- within the culture of workers and tradesmen in a tions with Scan'sassociates, has been very generous small areaof the SussexWeald and I will comment with his material and suggestions.Scan's daughter, on this social background. Daisy,and her husband,Arch Sherlock(who sadly I

I NEVERPLAYED TO MANY POSH DANCES..,.

died a year or so before publication), have been The focus throughout this book is on music and enthusiastic about this production and have given dancing,and the text representsthree distinct per- me much biographical and anecdotal material. spcctives. The first two sections of the biography Numerous others,includin g Scan'srelatives, friends (chapters2 and 3) reconstructScan's musicial activi- and neighbours, have contributed factual informa- ties in the context of his own home environment and tion, photographs, advice and practical help. are basedlargely on verbal accounts,supported by documentary evidence.Chapter 4 introduces me as Most of all, I remain deeply indebted to Mervyn one of the leading actors,and thus createsan in-built Plunkett for introducing me to Scan, his brother problem of how to maintain objectivity. I have cho- Will, and Daisy, and for our shared experiences sen therefore to write it in the first person, to avoid pubbing in the villages and small towns around any pretencethatit is anythingother thana personal West Hoathly from the mid-1 950sto the early 1950s. memoir. Beneaththe gentrification that was all too evident in Sussexeven then, there was still a country, popular The rest of the book, chapters 1 and 5 - 14, setsScan culture, its roots unbroken, but beginning to take a in a much broader context, namely that of tradi- hammering from vast social change. There were tional music-makingand dancing in southernEng- plenty of marvellous old singers about and a few land and further afield over two centuries.It is a re- musicians, too, but they tended to keep their heads markable fact that English traditional instrumental down. Mervyn had the imagination, sensitivity and music has escapedthe attention of historians and motivation to meet them on their home ground. As ethnomusicologists. My intention in engaging in a direct consequenceof his activities, my rubbing what I consider to be a tentative exploration of the shoulders with those old boys left me marked for subject has been to propose an agenda for debate life. In recent years Mervyn pondered upon the and to put down markers for future research. nature of Scan's style and repertoire and he in- tended writing a section of these notes. His unex- pecteddeath in December 1986deprives us of his stimulatingand inevitably contentiouscontribution. RegHaII

7 DuppasAvenue Croydon CRO4BX

NOTES

1. Shand'shitrecord,TheBluebell Polka,was played fre- 3.I decidcd upon ten-year sampling of the Szsser quently on the radio in the late 1950s.Scan had just Express(19ffi incomplete,19 1 g 1920 and 1930incom- seenShand's Band on television. pletc), skim-readingeach edition, and focusing on village reports.I alsodirected attention at events(the 2. Plunketf s interview was recordedon 9.2.1958and I Damond the end of the Boer War and worked from his transcription. My recordings wcre Jubilee, George V's Coronation and Silver a made on 19.8.1964,27 .7 .7965 and22.7 .1966, and Wal- |ubilee), iazz- aqe (1927)and an unsuccessfulattempt at find- ler's in October 1955,and I worked directly from the vear i rig 6videnceo f d ancing at N utley ln n (190'5). ( Sussex tapes.The Gibsons'wasmade on7.4.1,967and Nut- '1.897, Express,Feb. - Oct.1900 - May 7902,1905, tall's on 13.10.1958,and I worked from the latter's July Nov. 19@- Dec.191OFeb. -July 1,917,791,4,May- transcriptions. The Stradlings' interview was recorded April792't,1927,Jan.-May 1930and - May 1935.) late in the summer of 7968and Smith's dates from Jan. 20.8.1971,andlworked from their hanscriptions; the former appearedin edited form inFolkRools,31 (Jan., 1985),pp. 11-13,and the latter was edited for publi- cation in TraditionalMusic, 4 (1976), pp. 4-10. I

Chopterl: TheI 9th-centurySussex bockground

7-f'l he areaof the SussexHigh we are most production and waged labourers usually rented a I concerned with in considering Scan's social small plot of land for their own immediate needs r !2qkg16und embraces the typical Wealden and relied to some extrentupon corunon grazing. villages of Horsted Keynes and Fletching, the Ash- down Forestvillages of Nutley, Fairwarp and Forest Economic depression followed the Napoleonic Wars Row, and Chelwood Common and and, in spite of a degree of independenceamongst lying on the borders of the forest. In earlier times working men, 'to have been a rural worker in the three social formations were quite distinct, the nineteenth century must have been to have had an communities in the Wealden villages engaging in existenceof appalling toil, privation and precious 'until mixed farming, iron smelting and glass manufac- little iJy'; quite late in the century rural living ture, the forestersliving off the forest and the com- was extremely squalid.'aThe oppressive New Poor moners at Chelwood asserting their grazing and Law of 1834 was resisted by the poor and some gathering rights on the forest while living outside its Guardians alike, often pushing farmers and trades- boundary. Differencesin socialvalues and attitudes people into collusive alliances with labourers, as are discernible to the locals even now.1 The last many of those operating the Poor Law relief system hundred years have blurred these differences,but were only marginally better off than the paupers the high degree of social and economic interaction themselves.The Swing Riots of 1830,characterised masks a measureof social tension. by 'collective bargaining by riot', threatsand the de- struction of threshing machines, were followed by Mick Reed has challenged the general historical more covert forms of protest, often widely organ- view that, in the early and mid-nineteenth century ised and practised, the commonestbeing poaching. was predominantly a country of large land- lords, cultivated by tenant farmers working the land Mick Reed points out, however, that there were with hired labour. He concludes that the 'social for- other forms of conflict between labour and capital: mation of the English countryside was a complex working men and women protected their economic one,rather than the simple polarisation favoured by interestsby undertaking piecework rather than day historians generally ...'2In the SussexHigh Weald work, which gave them somecontrol over their own perhaps a majority, but at least a large minority of working conditions; the common practice among farmers worked small acreagesusing family rather farm and indoor servants of changing their em- than hired labour. This might be seenas the survival ployer annually, with most hirings taking place on of an English peasanteconomy. the door-step, gave servants some advantage in negotiating wages and conditions.s An exchange Although London's growingdemand for food pro- system of barter and credit operated alongside the vided a ready market for the produce of the Weald, normal flow of cash, with running, two-way ac- the general consensusof opinion among early and counts periodically settled by services or goods. mid-nineteenth cenhrry observerswas that farming Interest free loans and gifts were made to the poor in the Weald was'overwooded, ill-ploughed, chroni- by neighbours scarcely more affluent than them- cally backward and worst of all, too reliant on hops selves,and 'tradespeople and small farmers might ... [which] farmers steadily overproduced.'3 The depend on the poor for labour at crucial times or for situation was compounded by strong resistanceto the supply of raw materials for their various enter- improved methods, and much farming was at little prises.'6 more than subsistencelevel. Most working people earned their living in multiple employment, often The remote, impenetrable Weald, mud-sodden in partly self-employment. Tradesmensupplemented winter, was opened up by the eighteenth-century their income by some involvement in agricultural turnpike roads. and Lewes, centres I

I NEVERPLAYED TO MANY POSH DANCES,,,.

of commercial activity, were linked by coachroads, burning and cut litter (sedgegrass and heather) for first the long way round through Uckfield, which cattle feed, bracks for cattle bedding and dogwood required a coachingstage attheNutley Inn,purpo*- for charcoal burning.l2 The more prosperous 'cant' built in the 1750s.7A generation later, the shorter woodmen might buy a of wood, the right to route through Danehill was constructed, with the crop timber from a piece of woodland. Common Newlnn,later renamed the SheffieldArms,provided land on the forest, remote from villages and farms, at Fletching in 1785 by the Earl of Sheffield.Danehill, afforded someprotection and freedom from harass- with the Red Lion Inn at Chelwood Gate, thus be- ment to families of glpsies, and there was regularly came a staging post for the old Wealden manors of an encampment half a mile or so north of Fairwarp. Horsted Keynes and Fletching. At theend of the nineteenth century, a large propor- The process of gentrification began with the turn- tion of the working population in this part of Suisex pike and continued with the railways. The rapid were tied to their own property. There had been a 'l.870s,brought exploitation of the Southern coast for leisure and slump in farming from the about by pleasure was made possible by the London and cheap produce from the New World and the intro- Brighton railway line, opened in 1841,and the crea- duction of refrigerated transport, and the conse- tion of a completely new suburban dormitory town quent decline in land values made it possible, for a at Haywards Heath was possibleonly becauseof the short time, for some working men to buy or rent railway. land of their own (and incidentally made itpossible for town people to buy country properties). The [B]y the end of the century no village or main crops of the arearemained wheat, oats,barley, farm was more than ten miles from a mangolds, swedes,beansand hops with large areas station... [which] disgorgednot just pa_sturyge; 9f' sheep were driven up from Romney passengers,but milk churns, seed Marsh in September,fattened and returned in March.b catalogues,agricultural machinery and There was also some enterprise in new venhrres, commercial travellers.E such as poultry cramming and the development of the loganberry. Wealdenbrickg once carried slowlybybarge on the River Ouse,were now easily transported to London Labourers'average wages in Sussexhave been esti- and Brighton to meet a growing demand. In 1882 matedat 13s.4d. in 1872,13s.6d'in 1882,12s. in 1892 Horsted Keynes station was opened on the Lewes to and 14s.in 1898.14Average real income, however, EastGrinstead line. Completion of the link with the can not be readily pinned down, as many working Londonand Brighton line the followingyear stimu- men were fully or partly self-employed and those lated Scan Tester's father to move five miles west- that were full-time employees usually had an extra ward, abandoning the turnpike road system for the side-line; in any caserurny aspectsof exchangedid advantages the railway could provide for his fish not take place within the casheconomy.While rural business. life was inevitably based on land, agricultural pur- suits were not necessarilydominant. Rural indus- was enclosedas a royal deer park tries, domestic service and estatework, service trades in the fourteenth century. The Enclosure Awaid of and a host of minor by-employments provided a 1693sketched the framework of landownership for living for a large proportion of the population. It is its subsequentevolution ,with6676 acresremaining significant that while many of ScanTester,s associ- as corunon-land, and the rest, some 7000acres, the ates in music and dancing were employed on the property of individual landowners.eBy late Victo- land for some of their working lives, none can be rian times much of the privately-o*tre-d forest was identified as having beenprimarily a farmworker or divided into estateswith large country houseq owned agricultural labourer. by London businessmenand membersof the gentry. These provided work for house, garden and estaie Between1801 and 1901the population of Sussexas workers - woodmen, sawyers and builders - and a whole increased 'bothies' by nearly 400 per cent, from someestates had for their unattachedmale 150,000to about 500,000.There was some drift from ,carved staff.lo Small farms had dotted the Forest, the countryside to serviceindustries in Brighton and out of the wilderness at a very early date.,11Untilthe other coastal towns, and to work on the railways. Ashdown Forest Act of 1885 put an end to the There were brief invasions of navvies - some Irish, practice, squatters encroached on common land. but most from the Midlands and East Anglia - They graduated from branch and turf shantiescov- during the construction of the railway lines, but ering hollows dug into the side of a bank, to corru- oncethe work was done they moved on. No analysis gated iron shacks,before finally building in brick. hasbeen made of migrationpatterns within the irea Crofters grazed livestock, dug building itone and where Scan Tester spent his life, although local gravel for sale,lifted mould for manure and turf for history studies show ihe persistenceof maiy fami- I

CHAPTERl: THEl9TH CENTURYSUSSEX BACKGROUND

lies over severalcenturies.ls In the period 1891-1911, ment towards rationality and respectability in the the population of ForestRow increasedfrom 2137to countryside, embracing slate clubs, horticultural 3035,and inNutley from990 to 1109.InDanehillthe societiesand sports clubs. Working men organised total fell from 1214to 1131,and in Horsted Keynesit themselvesor were organised by their respectable remained constantat about 930.Fatalities during the social superiors. Great War made a substantial demographic and social impac! in Fairwarp, for example, 25 were Village bands, first formed in the early nineteenth killed from a total population of about 700. century, owed theirexistenceto public subscriptiory upper-class patronage and/or the efforts of work- The village pub, much more than the church, had ing men themselves.The samemotivating concepts increasingly become a focal point for all aspectsof of self-help, spiritual uplift and temperancedevel- the cultural life of country working men. At the oped further in the second half of the century with beginning of the nineteenth century, commercially- the provision of reading rooms, recreation rooms brewed beer was available in urban taverns and and working-mens' club rooms. Horsted Keynes alehouses,and inns sited strategically round the readingroom,erectedby the curateinthe 1850s,was country provided food, drink and accommodation supplied with newspapers,magazines and a baga- for bona fide travellers, most of whom were not telle table, and had an upstairs room capable of working men. In the country, apart from home- seating 150for concerts,entertainments and vestry brewedbeer, cider and wine, beer was produced for meetings.lTIn all the villages round about, working sale by hucksters for consumption off the premises men were involved in cricket, football and quoits - to be drunk at home or in the fields - and it seems and young women in the far from genteel game of very unlikely that country working men spent much ; local interest in cricket was strengthened time or money in premises set aside for drinking. by the appearanceof W. G. Graceand the Australian The flowering of country pub culture, although touring team at Sheffield Park in the 1880s and basedon much earlier roots, was largely the product 1890s. of the 1830s.The Beer-housesAct of 1830permitted any rate payer to sell beer for consumption on or off But, if by the end of the century it was no longer the premises, and the effect was that 24,000beer- largely true that 'rural life was extremely squalid,' it houses opened in England and Wales before the was still hard going for the working man and his year was out, followed by a further 22,000within the family; living was for many still frugal, hazardous next six years.16 and uncertain.A pointer tochangesthatwereonthe way was the position and status of Stephen Clark By a strange irony the government had provided a (1850-1942),neithera working man nor a member of greatly increasednumber of congenial meeting places the gentry,but school master at Horsted Keynes.At for working men in the year of the Swing Riots,at the the turn of the century he undertook additional very time they fearedinsurrection. One consequence duties for the community as secretaryof the friendly was the neglect and abuse of some wives and chil- societyand the football club, church organist and as- dren by those who spent all day in the pub, but the sessorand collector of King's taxes.By 1909he was 1830salso saw the beginning of a popular move- also an insuranceagentll8

NOTES

1. Some local people offer a 'racial' explanation for 5. Reed, 'Peasantr/, pp.624. perceived social differences,in the belief that the old 7. The turnpike road construction was authorised by Chelwood families are descended from pre-Saxon Act of Parliamentin 1753. settlers. 8. LowersoryVictorian Sus*x, p.'19. 2. Mick Reed, The Peasantry of Nineteenth{entury England:A NeglectedClass?', History Workshop,1,8 9. Roy Millward and Ad rian Robinson,The Hi gh Weald (Autumn 1.984),p.71.. (1971),p.1,74. 3. John Lowerson, Victorian Sussex(1,972), p. 43. 10. The word'bothy' is is used locally for the communal living quarters of estateworkers. 4. Mick Reed,'Social Change and SocialConflict in the Nineteeth Cenfury. A Comment',lournalof Peasant 11. Millward and Robinson,High Weald,p. 779. (Oct. Studies 1984),p. 121;lowerson, VictorianSus*x, 12. The term 'crofters' is used locally to refer to these P.10. established squatters. Bracks is ihe local word for 5. Reed,'SocialChange'. bracken.

ll I

I NEVERPLAYED TO MANY POSH DANCES....

13. Information on local agriculfure derived from vari- consumptionon or off the premises.The conditions ous volumes of KeIIy'sDirectory of Sussexfor the late of tenure, specified in the licence,were very similar nineteenth and early twentieth century, and from to thosefor innkeepers,but closinghoursweremuch oral sources. more strictly defined.'Opening hours were 4 a.m. - 10 in 1830,5 - 11 in 1834, 5 - 14. Lord Ernle, EnglishFarmingPast and Present, quoted p.m. a.m. p.m. and a.m. 11 p.m.,or10p.m.ifthepopulationwasunder2500, in Lowersorgp. 45. in 1840.(Harrison, Drink andthe Victorians: TheTem- - 15. SeeD anehill P ar ish Hist ori cal So ciety Ma gazine, 197 8 peranceQuestion in England181-5-1-872 (7971),p. 79.) present. 1,7.KeIIy's (1895). 15. Brian Spiller, VictorianPublic Houses (1972), p.9. 18. KeIIy's ('1,899,7903, 1909). Seealso Brian Harrison: '[Bly paying two guineasa year,any householderassessed to the poor rate could obtain from the excise a licence to sell beer for

The Creen Man, HorstedKeynes ;'i97 L. Scan'sparents bought the pub in 1891aill Scanlioed thcre in early &ildhooil. (P hot o gr aph:Hamish Black)

l :1 -."d !i!i!!:: ti*ti