Finding the voice of the North

As me and me marra was gannin' te work

We met wi' the Devil, it was in the dark

Aa up wi' my pick, it bein' the neet

And knocked off his horns, likewise his club feet

'I went looking for what was re-absorbable - what you could still sing with meaning to audiences today, what had been neglected because of the advances of Victorian Music Hall, then Ragtime dance music and then the onslaught of popular music," says folk singer Johnny Handle.

He found about 3,000 traditional North-East songs buried away in old books, newspapers, bric-a-brac collections and memory-banks. Many had been forgotten for at least a generation and often a century. But they've been dusted down and whittled down to 287 which were released yesterday on a 20 CD box set of North-East heritage.

A grant of £90,000 has come from the Lottery to finance the non-profit-making project, and the CDs are being given to libraries and schools, as well as being sold to the public.

The songs are sung by the biggest names the region has produced: classically Sir Thomas Allen, Owen Brannigan, Ian Storey, Graeme Danby and Suzannah Clarke; in popular terms Bryan Ferry, Sting, Robson Green, Kevin Whately, Jimmy Nail and Denise Welch.

The subject matter ranges from Berwick to Farndale in North Yorkshire; from the agriculture of Northumberland to the miners of Durham; from the modern chemical workers' moans on Teesside to the Collier's Rant on Wearside (above).

The Collier's Rant is the oldest song in the collection, possibly dating as far back as the 1620s. Johnny found it in a book dated 1783, by which time he felt it had been so well rounded that it must have been worked on by several generations.

"The religious people in those days thought that miners were tempting the devil by going underground, and in the song the miners play along with them," says Johnny.

The song, sung by Sir Thomas Allen on the CDs, ends with the Devil killing the miner's mate with a runaway tram - but while the miner mourns his loss he's also celebrating his escape with his life and a tramful of coal.

The herrin's gone for good, me lads

We've ploughed the seas lang syne

Whene'er upon the moonlit nights

We saw the silvery shine

We rushed towards the cobbles, lads

When herrin' came wer way

But now they've gone for good, me lads

But mackerel's in the bay.

One of Johnny's favourite songs is Mackerel in the Bay, which he discovered in The Banks o'Tyne Christmas Annual published by the South Shields Gazette in 1899.

"It's the most telling song of its time," he says, "looking ahead to the problems of today. It says there was a natural cycle of getting salmon, white fish and herring from the sea depending on the season, but that the big trawlers had fished them all out.

"There's a strong sense of community in the song, of people born to hardship but who had to keep with the changes as best they could to earn a living," says Johnny. "That's the sentiment of many of the songs: how do we keep up with the changes. It's the same as the closure of the shipyards and the coming of Nissan: the changes we all have to keep up with."

Prof Richard Middleton of Newcastle University says: "In the songs, there is a sense of pride in the work. It may be hard, it may be dangerous and it may be dirty, but we are good at it. It is part of the male attitude of strong men doing hard labour."

Young men and maidens all, a tale I will relate

Mark well this tragedy, which happened of late

At Barnard Castle bridge-end, an honest man lives there

His calling grinding corn, for which few can compare.

He had a sister dear, in whom he took delight

And Atkinson, his man, wooed her day and night

But he proved false hearted, with his flattering tongue

And, by fair promises, had this maid all undone.

Suzannah Clarke sings The Barnard Castle Tragedy, a song from the early 1800s. It comes from the beginning of the heyday of North-East songs, as people in their tight-knit communities composed songs about their own lives in their own dialects.

"The nature of the communities has meant that these repertoires have survived more strongly than elsewhere," says Prof Middleton," but it has also hindered the dissemination of the songs. Unless you are immersed in the dialect, you don't understand them."

As the 19th century wore on and the train began regularly taking people out of their insular communities, they became exposed to new songs. For example, a ditty was written for a pantomime at the Tyne Theatre in 1867 and very quickly became a hit across the whole North-East. It is called The Lambton Worm and is sung on the CD by a Lambton lad, Bryan Ferry:

But the Worm got fat and growed and growed, and growed an awful size

With greet big teeth, and a greet big gob, and greet big goggly eyes

And when at neets he craawled aboot te pick up bits o'news

If he felt dry upon the road, he'd milk a dozen cows.

The trains became so big and so fast that soon songs were coming up from the London music hall to capture audiences in Durham - although sometimes these songs had to be adapted to suit their new audiences. For example, Newcastle FC's unofficial anthem The Blaydon Races is actually a London tune called Brighton, and Cushy Butterfield (another Geordie Ridley composition) is really the tune of Pretty Polly Perkins of Paddington Green.

But with Kylie from Australia and Madonna from America dominating today's pop charts, will there be any 21st century North-East music for future generations to cherish as traditional?

Prof Middleton says: "The modern mass media will make it increasingly difficult to maintain this sort of local identity because musical repertoires are spread so quickly.

"But throughout the world the effect of that globalisation can be to set off the opposite reaction in people. They use the new media to stand up for their own local variant and to revive their own musical repertoires."

And so, spread across 20 shiny new CDs - a media that would have baffled the last generation as they swore at the scratches on their vinyl while trying to untangle their cassettes - are 400 years' worth and 14 hours of North-East songs, including from Middlesbrough a 1980s number sung by Graeme Danby entitled Nitty Nora, who turned half a class away from school:

We all went home with heads bent low

I hated Nitty Nora so

Mam was upset, but did her best

To rid me of these little pests.

Derbac soap and the big steel comb

My head was sore from that old comb,

'Don't worry, pet', Mam said at last,

'If this doesn't work, we'll have to act fast.

'Vinegar will kill them, Aa'm sure of that

Or Aa'll stamp them dead when they fall on the mat.'

'Vinegar?' Aa thowt, 'can this be true?'

Did she know what Aa was goin' through?

'Eh! Mam,' Aa cried, 'Aa've only got nits

Aa'm not a bloody bag of chips!'

But one week later, Aa returned te school

Me head was as clean as a swimmin' pool.

* The Northumbria Anthology 20 CD box set costs £150 and is available from Windows in Newcastle. It is available by post for £157.50 (cheques made payable to MWM) from: MWM, 14 Cobblestone Court, Newcastle NE6 1AB.

Also available are two single CDs containing most of the best well-known songs sung by the biggest names.

Full details can be found at www.northumbriaanthology.com