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Tavistock Goosey Fair

[ Roud 10683 ; C. John Trythall]

This humorous West Country song was written by C. John Trythall and published in 1912. Tony Rose sang it on his first album, Young Hunting with the Young Tradition adding support for the chorus. He commented in the album's sleeve notes:

Being a Westcountryman it never ceases to amuse me that the mere mention of West Country is often enough to conjure up for many, pictures of a kind or rural paradise, which unfortunately has little in common with reality. However, Tavistock Goosey Fair does at least in some respects reinforce the traditional image of the West Country. I first heard it some years ago from a singer called Bill Chappell in Plymouth.

And Pete M. gave some historical background in the Mudcat Café:

Goosey Fair is held on the third Wednesday in October. It originates of course in the fairs held to sell geese fattened on the gleanings from the harvest to be killed and stored for winter. So far as I know Tavistock and Nottingham are the only Goose fairs still held. Nottingham being on the preceding weekend. Tavistock was the seat of the Stannery Parliament after Crockern Tor became too inconvenient (1749).

Lyrics

'Tis just a month come Friday next, Bill Champerdown and me
Well us traipsed across old Darty Moor, the Goosey Fair to see.
And us made ourselves quite fiddy, us greased and oiled our hair.
Then off us goes in our Sunday clothes behind old Bill's grey mare.
Us smelled the sage and onion half a mile from Whitchurch Down,
And didn't us have a blow-out when us come into the town.
And there us met Ned Hannerford, Jan Steer and Micky Square,
And it seemed to we, all Devon must be at Tavistock Goosey Fair.

Chorus (after each verse):

And it's Oh, and where be a-gwain?
And what be you a doin'-of there?
Heave down your prong and stamp along
To Tavistock Goosey Fair

Us went to see the horses and the heifers and the ewes,
Us went on all them roundabouts and into all the shows.
And then it started raining, and a-blowin' to our face,
So off us goes up to the Rose to have a dish of tea.
And there us had a sing-song and the folks kept droppin' in
And what with them what knowed us, well us had a drop of gin
And what with one and t'other, us didn't seem to care
Whether us was to Bellever Tor, or Tavistock Goosey Fair.

'T were rainin' streams and dark as pitch when us trotted home that night
And when us got past Merrivale Bridge the mare, her took a fright.
Well says I to Bill, “Be careful, you'll have us in them drains.”
Says Bill to me, “Cor bugger!”, says he, “Why haven't you got the reins?”
Just then the mare ran slap against a whackin' great big stone;
Her kicked the trap to flibbets and her trotted off alone.
And when us come to reckonin' t'weren't no good standin' there:
So us had to traipse home thirteen mile from Tavistock Goosey Fair.

Acknowledgements

Garry Gillard transcribed the lyrics based on the text shown in the Mudcat Café.