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You're a good couple of weeks behind us looking at those trees (posting from the mild, damp South West)
A good couple of weeks behind in posting them, too - I took that photo on March 19 :oops:. But I was in the damp South West myself last week, and you certainly did seem much deeper into Spring than us a bit further north.
 
I realise that, but some versions insert my alternative line between the verse and chorus. And add "where the ducks play football" after the chorus.
Every day's a school day. I grew up in Bradford, but this is the first time I ever heard of the trousers line. I can never think of the song without the football-playing ducks, though.
 
Train drivers play On Ilkley Moor on the engine horn as a greeting. When I was a child we'd hear an Ilkley and say 'That's a Yorkshireman!'
American engineers play Shave and a Haircut in the same spirit. There are YouTube videos of both.

Here's a compilation of Ilkleys -


At 53:00 you'll see a sunny Platform 6, Crewe Station. :)
 
In South Yorkshire it's also one of the many tunes used to sing the carol While Shepherds Watched
 
No it doesn't look like the exact spot
That's my impression, too. In fact, I'd be amazed if it was the right spot - it's actually on the way up to White Wells from the town, rather than beyond it. More to come in the other thread in due course, I hope. I just vaguely remembered that you were curious about the general landscape around there, so hoped to whet your appetite.
 
In South Yorkshire it's also one of the many tunes used to sing the carol While Shepherds Watched
While shepherds watched their flocks by night
On Ilkley Moor baht 'aaa-at
While shepherds watched their flocks by night night night
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at
 
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While shepherds watched their flocks by night
On Ilkley Moor baht 'aaa-at
While shepherds watched their flocks by night night night
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at
On Ilkley Moor baht 'at

Funny thing is that "Cranbrook" (the tune used for both) was actually written by a bloke from Kent
 
I knew it as the Go With Noakes theme when I was young. Didn't know anything about Ilkley Moor until I read about it in The Unexplained.

Great tune though.
 
I knew it as the Go With Noakes theme when I was young. Didn't know anything about Ilkley Moor until I read about it in The Unexplained.

Great tune though.

A lot of these old Methodist tunes are much better than the awful dirges that make up the standard hymn book. I think in the 19th century the church made a conscious effort to get rid of the 18th century stuff as it was all a bit too rousing and worldly, with its little gallery orchestras and conductors and the like. Get the plebs singing soberly along in unison to an organ, that was more the Victorian attitude.
 
A lot of these old Methodist tunes are much better than the awful dirges that make up the standard hymn book. I think in the 19th century the church made a conscious effort to get rid of the 18th century stuff as it was all a bit too rousing and worldly, with its little gallery orchestras and conductors and the like. Get the plebs singing soberly along in unison to an organ, that was more the Victorian attitude.

One wonders whether, when the Salvation Army came into being: they spotted the 19th-century trend as mentioned; and it was in part, what prompted their thing of "why should the Devil have all the best tunes?". Their taking accordingly, of loved "profane" songs with catchy tunes, and writing Christian words to same: part of an attempt to make Christianity more attractive, and less stuffy-seeming, to the general populace.
 
A lot of these old Methodist tunes are much better than the awful dirges that make up the standard hymn book. I think in the 19th century the church made a conscious effort to get rid of the 18th century stuff as it was all a bit too rousing and worldly, with its little gallery orchestras and conductors and the like. Get the plebs singing soberly along in unison to an organ, that was more the Victorian attitude.
Yup, the history of music in church is long and interesting. We have a brief discussion of it somewhere, particularly mentioning rural church orchestras as seen in Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd of 1874, set about ten years earlier.
The danger of playing music and especially of singing in a religious context is the that people just love music too much.

I enjoy this rather niche subject and just now looked up some ancients instruments including the fascinating J-shaped crumhorn.
Some musical instruments would originally be made from animal parts, as this passage mentions:

The earlier Krummhorn had no wind cap, so players placed their lips directly on the reed. Like the renaissance crumhorn, it was curved (as one would expect, given the name), a feature which itself implies an origin from the use of an animal horn, such as we find with medieval bladder pipes.
The only explanation for the musically and technically unnecessary bending of the wood into the distinctive bend seems to be this shape-matching of the crumhorn’s developmental origin.

'Medieval bladder pipes'. Pure poetry. :cool:

From the safe and scholarly Early Music Muse website:

The crumhorn: a short history

Look at the beautiful illustrations. Click to see and hear a bladder pipe played. Who in their right mind wouldn't? :))
 
This spurred me to look up "English Musical Instruments" and the wiki article gave me this;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_musical_instruments

And I was encouraged to see that the 'Hurdy Gurdy' is listed as an English invention, based on other European stringed instruments.
Which now seems obvious to me. Where else in the world would come up with something so ridiculous, with such a daft name?
"....a dance instrument....used for medieval raves...." is probably over-egging the pudding somewhat.
I had included a clip here of a demonstration but have to link to it instead - 2 minutes long.
link to youtube of a hurdy gurdy in action
 
This spurred me to look up "English Musical Instruments" and the wiki article gave me this;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:English_musical_instruments

And I was encouraged to see that the 'Hurdy Gurdy' is listed as an English invention, based on other European stringed instruments.
Which now seems obvious to me. Where else in the world would come up with something so ridiculous, with such a daft name?
"....a dance instrument....used for medieval raves...." is probably over-egging the pudding somewhat.
I had included a clip here of a demonstration but have to link to it instead - 2 minutes long.
link to youtube of a hurdy gurdy in action
I thought it was mostly a French invention. Maybe the name 'Hurdy Gurdy' is English?
 
Well I wasn't claiming it as English in origin, just that Wiki listed it as such - the entry for the hurdy gurdy itself gives some background to it's invention being subject to input/influence from many previous incarnations of similar instruments from other places, which appeared to culminate in the finished item.
 
He's now 75 and last performed only 3 or 4 years ago, and last released an album only last year, the compilation 'Lunarian'.

My personal favourite was Sunshine Superman.
 
Narrowest street in England.
"Nestled along the side of Greggs Bakery on Exeter’s High Street lies the narrowest street in Britain.
Once known as Small Lane, it was renamed Parliament Street sometime between 1651 and 1832.
It measures just 25 inches at its narrowest point and 45 inches at its widest, and has a length of about 50 metres."


1650044819356.png
 
Narrowest street in England.
"Nestled along the side of Greggs Bakery on Exeter’s High Street lies the narrowest street in Britain.
Once known as Small Lane, it was renamed Parliament Street sometime between 1651 and 1832.
It measures just 25 inches at its narrowest point and 45 inches at its widest, and has a length of about 50 metres."


View attachment 54356
I was just on 'Small Street' in NJ this morning, but it didn't look anything like this!
 
Really?! Where was that then?
The Victoria Hall in Hanley, Stoke on Trent. Summer 2005.

My older sister was a lifelong Donovan fan and I took her to see him as a birthday gift. Possibly the best present she ever had. :)
 
I was once walking in Hanley and a guy was coming the opposite way. We did that thing where you both move to the same side as each other a few times. What usually happens at this point (and a universally understood un-written rule) is that you both laugh and say something like "are we dancing?" and then eventually get past each other and carry on. Being Hanley, this guy just glared at me like he wanted to kill me.
 
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