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Welcome Bonny Brid!

[ Roud V30585 ; Bodleian Roud V30585 ; Mudcat 96465 ; Sam Laycock]

Harry & Lesley Boardman: Folk Songs & Ballads of Lancashire

Sam Laycock wrote Welcome, Bonny Brid! before the birth of his daughter, Hannah, on 8 December 1864. It was written during the Cotton Famine and is a touching comment on the problems of bringing up a child born during a depression. Laycock was expecting a boy so the poem is addresses to a ‘lad’. Bonny Brid grew up to marry Sim Schofield, another Lancashire poet and many anniversaries in her life were comemorated by poems written by her father, her husband and their friends. Bonny Brid died on 13 July 1939 in Torquay.

Harry Boardman sang Tha’s Welcome, Little Bonny Brid in 1971 on his and Dave Hillery’s Topic album of popular song and verse from Lancashire and Yorkshire, Trans Pennine. He also printed Welcome Bonny Brid in the 1973 book Folk Songs & Ballads of Lancashire. He noted on the album:

The piece was written by Samuel Laycock during the ‘Cotton Panic’ (Cotton Famine 1862–1864). The blockade of the Southern American States by Lincoln’s navy meant that the importation of cotton into Lancashire was drastically reduced and eventually, almost ceased. This brought about the most widespread unemployment that Lancashire had ever experienced and although some historians have said that Lancashire operatives were brought to ‘near starvation’, there is no doubt that actual death by starvation was not unknown. Against this background, Laycock wrote of an ‘unplanned’ but not unwanted child, born into a family already far from small and with little food to sustain it. Laycock’s wife was, in fact, pregnant when he wrote Bonny Brid (Bird), but the boy he obviously anticipated turned out to be a girl. Bonny Brid has remained a firm favourite in Lancashire to this day. It is probably true to say that if anyone knows only two Lancashire dialect pieces, one of them is bound to be Welcome, Bonny Brid. The tune here was adapted by Harry Boardman.

Max Boye sang Bonnie Brid in 1981 on his EMI album It’s Good to See You.

Steve Turner sang Bonnie Brid in 2023 on his Tradition Bearers album Curious Times. He noted:

Sam Laycock, the Lancashire poet, wrote the verses about the cotton famine of 1861 caused by both sides in the American Civil War blocking their ports which stopped the cotton being imported into Britain and being processed in the Lancashire Cotton Mills thus leaving workers in a dire state. It also affected the cotton pickers of Georgia who had to survive on peanuts (‘goober peas’).

The late Harry Boardman invited me and the band I was in at the time, Canny Fettle, to perform on a programme about the event on BBC2 in June 1974 and being the only Lancastrian in the band I got to sing a few songs but not this one, so I’ve been saving it up till now! Ironically very few people had BBC2 at the time so we had to go quite a distance up the street to find somewhere to watch the programme when it came out!

Lyrics

Harry Boardman sings Welcome Bonny Brid

Tha’rt welcome little bonny brid,
But tha’ shouldn’t ha’ come just when th’ did;
Toimes are bad.
We’re short o’ pobbies for eawr Joe,
But that, of course, tha’ didn’t know
Did t’a lad?

Aw’ve often yeard mi feyther tell,
’At when aw coom i’ th’ world misel’
Trade wur slack;
And neaw its hard wark pooin’ throo –
But aw munno fear thee, – iv aw do
Tha’ll go back.

Cheer up! these toimes ’ll awter soon;
Aw’m beawn to beigh another spoon –
One for thee;–
An’, as tha’s sich a pratty face
Aw’ll let thi have eawr Charley’s place
On mi knee.

God bless thi, love! aw’m fain tha’rt come,
Just try and mak’ thisel’ awhoam:
Here’s thi nest;
Tha’rt loike thi mother to a tee,
But tha’s thi feyther’s nose, aw see.
W ell, aw’m blest!

Come, come, tha needn’t look so shy,
Aw am no’ blamin’ thee, not I;
Settle deawn.
An’ tak’ this haupney for thisel’.
There’s lots o’ sugar-sticks to sell
Deawn i’ th’ teawn.

Aw know when furst aw coom to th’ leet,
Aw’re fond o’ owt ’at tasted sweet;
Tha’ll be th’ same.
But come, tha’s never towd thi dad
What h e’s to co thi yet, mi lad.
What’s thi name?

Hush! hush! tha mustn’t cry this way,
But get this sope o’ cinder tay
While it’s warm;
Mi mother used to give it me.
When aw wur sich a lad as thee,
In her arm.

Hush-a-babby, hush-a-bee, –
Oh, what a temper! – dear-a-me
Heaw tha strikes!
Here’s a bit o’ sugar, sithee;
Howd thi noise, an’ then aw’ll gie thee
Owt tha likes.

We’ve nobbut getten coarsish fare,
But, eawt o’ this tha’ll get thi share,
Never fear.
Aw hope tha’ll never want a meal.
But alius fill thi bally weel
While tha’rt here.

Thi feyther’s noan been wed so lung.
An’ yet tha sees he’s middlin’ thrung,
Wi’ yo’ o.
Besides thi little brother Ted,
We’ve one upsteers, asleep i’ bed,
Wi’ eawr Joe.

But tho’ we’ve childer two or three.
We’ll mak’ a bit o’ reawm for thee,
Bless thee, lad!
Thar’t th’ prattiest brid we have i’ th’ nest,
So hutch up closer to mi breast;
Aw’m thi dad.