The Brampton Bugle
© Stephen William Gray
Brampton is a small town - only 30 miles from where I live - and a place I had not previously suspected was such a hotbed of folk activity. The Brampton Bugle lays it all bare.
The eminent historian Arthur B. Nadger regales us with his expertise on morris dancers, mummery and cludge mollying. Morris dancing, according to Nadger, was one of the earliest forms of biological warfare. Mumming was responsible for much of the spread of disease and social unrest in the middle ages. "To this day there is a prevalent but misguided belief that mumming was a form of travelling theatre for the purpose of harmless entertainment".
Nadger devotes a lengthy page to the life and times of J.M.Blunt, uni-cyclist and folklorist, and the great man's epic work "the Folke Songes of Olde Englande." In it is the definitive collection of "Cludge Mollying" songs. This is from "My Johnny's Gone a-Mollying Oh":
My Johnny's gone a-mollying oh, across the raging sea,
My heart it is full sore because he'll not be back for tea,
My cludge it yearns for Johnny's fork, and more so for his string,
But my Johnny's gone a-mollying oh, and won't be back 'til Spring.
When I saw these lyrics, I thought straightway of Rambling Syd Rumpo. Rambling Syd was the itinerant folksinger who would weekly open his gander bag on BBC Radio's "Round the Horne". Although Syd does not appear to have had a song specifically about Cludge Mollying, he mined the same vein as J.M.Blunt with his songs of dying occupations and outlawed social pastimes.
Take a look at the Brampton Bugle yourself - I am sure you will be impressed by the cornucopia of invented folklore.
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