> Folk Music > Songs > An Old Man’s Advice
An Old Man’s Advice
[
Roud 1482
; Ballad Index PECS036
; trad.]
Roy Palmer: Everyman’s Book of English Country Songs
Walter Pardon sang An Old Man’s Advice in a recording made by Mike Yates at home in Knapton, Norfolk on 5 December 1978. This recording was included in 1982 on his Topic album A Country Life. and on his 2000 Musical Traditions anthology Put a Bit of Powder on It, Father where Mike Yates noted:
Walter learned this song from his uncle Billy Gee, and it appears to be unique to the Gee family repertoire—and, since it’s a re-working of My Grandfather’s Clock as a Union song, it could easily be the product of a local pen. He had several other Union songs in either full or fragmentary form, and the reader is directed to [the Musical Traditions article] The Socio-political Songs of Walter Pardon […] for further information on these songs, and the circumstances surrounding them.
Mike Yates also noted on the original album:
In 1872 Joseph Arch (1826-1919) founded the first agricultural workers’ union, The Warwickshire Agricultural Labourers‘ Union (later the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union), which lasted until the year 1896. Union activity was strong in Norfolk—Arch, in fact, became Liberal M.P. for N.W. Norfolk in 1885—and in 1906 George Edwards, a Norfolk man, founded the Eastern Counties Agricultural Labourers’ and Small Holders’ Union, the forerunner of the National Union of Agricultural and Allied Workers. In 1922 Edwards published his autobiography, “From Crow-Scaring to Westminster”, and Walter believes that An Old Man’s Advice is based on Edwards’ life; the chorus line “The work’s begun, never to stop again” referring to the Union that Edwards founded in 1906. Several local people, including Walter, remember Edwards speaking in the district from the back of a farm wagon, and the photograph of him that is used in this booklet was provided by Walter himself.
See: National Agricultural Labourers’ and Rural Workers’ Union Song Book (Norwich c. 1916).
Pete Coe sang Old Man’s Advice in 2004 on his Backshift album In Paper Houses. He noted:
Agricultural Farm Labourer’s Unions were formed in the late C19th and popular songs, hymns, tub thumpers and parodies played an important part at meetings and demonstrations. Walter Pardon sang this song which has lasted better than most others. As a boy, Walter had met George Edwards, leader of National Union of Agricultural Workers.
Lyrics
Walter Pardon sings An Old Man’s Advice
My grandfather worked when he was very young
And his parents felt grieved that he should.
To be forced in the fields to scare away crows
To earn himself a bit of food.
The days they were long and his wages were but small,
And to do his best he always tried.
But times are better for us all
Since the old man died.
Chorus (after each verse):
For the union is started, unite, unite.
Cheer up faint-hearted, unite, unite.
The work’s begun, never to stop again,
Since the old man died.
My grandfather said in the noontide of life
Poverty was a grief and a curse.
For it brought to his home sorrow, discord and strife,
And kept him poor with empty purse.
So he took a bold stand and joined the union band,
To help his fellow men he tried.
A union man he vow’d he’d stand
‘Til the day he died.
My grandfather’s dead. As we gathered round his bed
These last words to us he did say.
“Don’t let your union drop, nor the education stop,
Or else you will soon rue the day.
Get united to a man, for it is your only plan;
Make the union your care and your pride.
Help on reforming every way you can.”
Then the old man died.