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Flash Company / The Yellow Handkerchief

[ Roud 954 ; Ballad Index K360 ; trad.]

Percy Webb sang Flash Company in a mono recording at The King's Head, Upper St. Islington in 1968. This was published in 1974 as title track of the Topic album Flash Company: Traditional Singers from Suffolk and Essex. Mike Yates commented in the album's sleeve notes:

Flash Company was first noted in Limerick, sung to the tune of The Green Bushes, on the mid 1850's. Most collected versions seem somehow incomplete, suggesting that at some time or other, an unknown broadside printer had assembled a number of loosely related verses in order to form a “new” song, thus fixing its present form. Some singers call it The Yellow Handkerchief, others First I Loved Thomas. Dr George Gardiner collected a version in Hampshire in 1906 and Walter Ford found it in Surrey the following summer. For some reason the song has survived best in East Anglia. Also among gipsies in Southern England, many of whom can recall part, if not all, of it. As will be readily noticed, this version shares its tune with Bob Hart's set of The Bold Princess Royal.

Isla St Clair sang Flash Company on her BBC television series soundtrack The Song and the Story and by Linda Adams as title track of the Fellside Recordings anthology Flash Company. Linda Adams gives “a field recording of the wonderful Phoebe Smith” as her source, probably The Yellow Handkerchief recorded by Paul Carter and Frank Purslow in Phoebe Smith's home in Melton, Woodbridge, Suffolk, in 1969 and published on her LP Once I Had a True Love.

Norma Waterson sang Flash Company on Waterson:Carthy's second album Common Tongue. Martin Carthy commented in the album's sleeve notes:

Percy Webb was a favourite singer of Norma's, and of many others too. She and many other women loved his spunky way of singing and the fact that he remained a very sexy man right up until he died at a ripe old age. Flash Company was a favourite song of his and was regarded by many as his anthem. Norma's way of singing it owes a lot to him, but the tune actually comes from the Southampton singer Job Read who met the collector George Gardiner in 1906.

June Tabor sang Flash Company on her album with Martin Simpson, A Cut Above. This track was also included on her compilation Aspects.

Bellowhead recorded Flash Company in 2006 for their CD Burlesque and performed it live on September 26, 2007 at Shepherds Bush Empire, London; this concert was issued as the DVD Live at Shepherds Bush Empire. The CD liner notes comment:

Also known as The Yellow Handkerchief, the song dates back at least to nineteenth-century broadsides printed in London. It was at one time very popular in parts of Suffolk, and Ralph Vaughan Williams came across it in Herefordshire in 1909. George Gardiner collected a couple of versions in Hampshire, one of which was published by Frank Purslow in The Wanton Seed (London: EFDSS, 1968), p.43.

Our melody and text are based on a recording by Mary Ann Haynes made by Mike Yates in Brighton, Sussex in 1975, issued on the English Folk Dance and Song Society album A Century of Song. Haynes (née Milest) was born into a gypsy family in 1905, in a caravan behind the Coach and Horses in Portsmouth. After many itinerant years she settled in Brighton, working as a flower-seller to support her family after the death of her husband. It is probable that she learned most of her large repertoire from other travellers, and her son Ted was also recorded by Mike Yates. The gypsy tradition is represented on a number of recordings including Yates' 2003 compilation Here's Luck to a Man: Gypsy Songs and Music from South-East England.

Lyrics

Waterson:Carthy sing Flash Company

First I loved William and then I loved John
But now I love Thomas he's a clever young man
With his white coat and stocking and his high ankle shoe
He wears a velvet jacket like a flash lad he goes

Fiddling and dancing was all his delight
But keeping flash company has ruined him quite
Has ruined him quite and a great many more
If it hadn't have been flash company he'd never have been so poor

Take this yellow handkerchief in remembrance of me
And wear it around your neck when in flash company
Dry up your briny tears and don't look so sad
There's plenty more flash girls all around to be had

Rocks shall run to water and the sea shall run dry
If I should prove false to the lad that loves I
The sweetest strawberries shall grow in the sea
If I should prove false to the one that loves me

First I loved William and then I loved John
But now I love Thomas he's a clever young man
With his white coat and stocking and his high ankle shoe
He wears a velvet jacket like a flash lad he goes

Bellowhead sing Flash Company

Oh the jigging and all the dancing it was all my delight
And staying out late, my boys, been the ruin of me quite
Staying out late, my boys, like a great many more
If it hadn't have been for flash company I should never have been so poor

Once I had a colour as red as any rose
But now I'm as pale as the lily that grows
As the lily in the garden, my beauty's all gone
If it hadn't have been for flash company I should never have been so poor

So take this yellow handkerchief in remembrance of me
Tie it safely round your neck when in flash company
Flash company's been the ruin of a great many more
If it hadn't have been for flash company I should never have been so poor
If it hadn't have been for flash company I should never have been so poor

Acknowledgements

Transcription from Norma Waterson's singing by Garry Gillard.