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Since Time Immoral

Since Time Immoral

Since Time Immoral
The Kipper Family

Dambuster Records DAM 005 (LP, UK, 1984)
Dambuster Records DAM CD 005 (CD, UK, 2001)

 Since Time Immoral

Recorded on location, somewhere or other, near Trunch, Norfolk, England by the Dambuster mobile recording unit.
Produced by Richard Digance, engineered by Dave Bubb
The Company: Sid and Henry Kipper, with family and friends: Annie, Dot, George, Kevin and Len Kipper, Dick Nudds and Chris Sugden - and the vicar.
George Kipper appears courtesy of HM Prisons.

(P) Dambuster Records 1970 (Note that this is the epoch in the UNIX world!)

Tracks

Side 1Side 2
  1. Introduction by Henry and Sid Kipper (0:40)
  2. Not Sixteen Til Sunday (2:10)
  3. The Male Female Highwayman (3:56)
  4. The Unlaid Maid (3:22)
  5. The Cricket Match (2:38)
  6. All on the Shore (The Body) (2:29)
  7. Hollow Ground (2:49)
  8. Dido, Fido (3:11)
  1. The Whistling Monologue (1:34)
  2. The Village P.I.M.P. (4:37)
  3. Poor Old Cow (1:57)
  4. To Be a Pharmacist (3:27)
  5. Adieu You Pretty Nancy (4:15)
  6. A Lightweight Dirge (4:54)

Note to Not Sixteen Til Sunday

This song obviously predates the many printed versions of a superficially similar song, Seventeen Come Sunday. Here, though, the reason for the inclusion of the girl's age is quite clear - obviously earlier collectors and publishers found the idea of a song about under-age sex too much for their prissy sensibilities, and “improved” it almost out of all recognition. The refrain, too, is rescued from the nonsense of Victorian sensibility to something much more meaningful. A full analysis is not possible here, but it should be noted that rhubarb is traditionally an aphrodisiac - “that get you going,” says Henry - while the fiddle is a well known sexual referent, as in Jack Onion, who fiddled so badly that the girls all wept.

Note

Just when you thought there were no great traditional singers to find in England, along comes the Kipper Family (Henry and his up and coming son Sid) singing songs from the rarely heard tradition of Trunch in Norfolk. Unaccompanied they sing unique versions of traditional songs - Not Sixteen Til Sunday, The Unlaid Maid, All on the Shore, The Village P.I.M.P., and of course, their masterpiece Dido Fido which is passing into the tradition - not surprising when you consider the beauty of the lyrics:

There was Dido, Fido, Bonzo and Rex,
Rover and Lassie and Spot,
There was Butch, there was Candy,
There was Patch and there was Sandy,
These were the dogs what I had got.

Sheer poetry! A satirical classic!

(Thanks to F. S. for the note.)

Acknowledgements

Garry Gillard thanks Tony Rees - and John Bushby who kindly loaned him the precious original.