Many years ago I collected a folk song. Of course, as I was only about five at the time I had no idea that was what I was doing when we sang it in the playground. None of us realised that those playground songs were all an important part of our heritage - they were just a part of our games, more inclusive, but less fun than pretend games of families, schools, hospitals or princes and princesses. Most of the songs we sung then were variations on the usual playground games - Nuts in May, The Big Ship Sailed, Wallflowers, In and Out the Dusty Bluebells etc., but I Love a Fisherman has I believe a very special place being an original Cleethorpes folksong. Years later I needed a folksong to sing in a festival so I dusted it off and gammoned more musical friends into helping me transcribe the music to hand to the adjudicator - no need of an accompanist's copy as it was to be sung unaccompanied. (For the record, by the way, I came third - the competitition being for singing rather than originality of choice.)

Anyway, here it is:-

song
I love a fisherman, a bonny, blue-eyed fisherman;
I love a fisherman, and that fisherman loves me.

And ev'ry Monday mo-orning he brings home for me
Some fresh and flapping fish, fish, fish;
fresh and flapping fish, fish, fish.
He brings it home for me.
So-o .
I love a fisherman, a bonny, blue-eyed fisherman;
I love a fisherman, and that fisherman loves me.

And ev'ry Tuesday mo-orning he brings home for me
Some sweet and tasty fish, fish, fish;
sweet and tasty fish, fish, fish.
He brings it home for me.
So-o
I love a fisherman, a bonny, blue-eyed fisherman;
I love a fisherman, and that fisherman loves me.

And ev'ry Wednesday mo-orning he brings home for me
Some white and flaky fish, fish, fish;
white and flaky fish, fish, fish.
He brings it home for me.
So-o
I love a fisherman, a bonny, blue-eyed fisherman;
I love a fisherman, and that fisherman loves me.

And ev'ry Thursday mo-orning he brings home for me
Some more of that damned fish, fish, fish.
more of that damned fish, fish, fish.
He brings it home for me
So-o
I love a fisherman, a bonny, blue-eyed fisherman;
I love a fisherman, and that fisherman loves me.

And ev'ry Friday mo-orning he brings home for me
Some day of penance fish, fish, fish;
day of penance fish, fish, fish
He brings it home for me
So-o
I love a fisherman, a bonny, blue-eyed fisherman;
I love a fisherman, and that fisherman loves me.

And ev'ry Sat'day mo-orning he brings home for me
He brings it home for me
rotten, stinking fish, fish, fish.
Some rotten, stinking fish, fish, fish;
So-o
I love the butcherman man, the bonny, brown-eyed butcherman;
I love the butcherman, and that butcherman loves me.

And ev'ry Sunday mo-orning he brings round for me
Some red and juicy meat, meat, meat;
red and juicy meat, meat, meat.
He brings it round for me
Bu-ut
I love my fisherman, a bonny, blue-eyed fisherman;
I love a fisherman, and that fisherman's wed me.

On Saturday we had an evening of Lincolnshire folk music in the village hall together with a meal of Lincolnshire food - chine, haselet, pork pie, sausage, plum loaf, poacher cheese - and very nice it all was. The entertainer (a young man who is a professional morrisman among his other folk credentials) sang and danced for us with a running commentary of how he came by the various songs (to which, at the interval, I was able to add a copy of the above).

I am, however, always a bit suspicious of the authenticity of some collected folksongs. Picture, if you will, the scene when Bert and Sid meet outside the White Hart inn in Mudby-cum-Woldthorpe somewhere in rural Lincolnshire around the year 1900.

"Now then, Bert, 'ave you 'eard about yon London chap offering 'alf-a-crown for any song what 'e' en't 'eard afore?"

"'Alf-a-crown, Sid! That's a mort o' drinking money! You know any songs, boy?"

"Not now, Bert, but I reckon by the time 'e gets to the White 'Art you n me'll know plenty, eh, boy?"

"Ay that we will, Sid. That we will."

The two old men chuckle and go into the pub.

You see, I know the difficulties with even an authentic folksong. I was five when I sang I Love a Fisherman in the playground. I remember the tune, but I also know that as a singer I was pretty well tuneless until I was pushing nine, so how accurate is my memory? A tune which moreover went from my singing, though Ruth's notation to her father's transcription into a more conventional musical form. As for the words, I remember that the fish progressed through the week from "fresh and flapping" to "rotten, stinking" and some of the descriptions in between, but all six sets of epithets in the right order? No. So when I wrote it down I augmented what I remembered with what seemed to fit. Would, for example, anyone in Methodist Cleethorpes ever have come up with the concept of "day of penance fish" for Friday? (Though, if the song was more wide spread such an idea would certainly be current nine miles up the coast in Catholic Immingham around 1900 or earlier.)

Interestingly, talking at the end of the evening I discovered a fourth person who remembers this particular song. My father has vague memories of it from his childhood, Maureen (Issy'a and Becky's mother remembers it mostly for the frisson of actually singing the phrase 'damn fish', and now Veronica recalls it from the same playground as my father (Bursar Street) though about twenty years later.

PS My feeling was that the evening was slightly marred when the Chairman of the Village Hall Committee stood up to thank the entertainer etc. (reminding me of the large lady at the end of the Morcambe and Wise Show) when it should have been Trish, whose original idea it had been and who had organised it all, who spoke, with the Chairman only getting up at the end to thank Trish for all her hard work. Possibly only a minor breach of etiquette, but irritating for Trish who clearly had her speech planned and was trying hard not to look daggers at the chairman.