The Stockport Strike

The Stockport Strike
Vocal & Guitar Gerry Kearns

Come all you sons of toil, listen to my song,
Whilst I a tale unfold of grief and wrong.
It was in forty-eight, when work was scant,
Our wages were reduced full ten per cent.

Our masters pledge to pay, should trade revive,
The ten per cent they took, the panic to survive,
But now that trade is good again,
Our wants we have made known,
But our employers tell us,
We must let well alone.

Since they will not comply, with our just demand,
We have resolved to bring the mills to a stand.
Since we the losses of, bad trade must bare,
Why not in prosperous times have our just share.

Truth is on our side, with cheering ray,
Help us then fellow men, to win the day.


Traditional,
Arrangement  © Oldham Tinkers    

Throughout the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the output of strike songs was considerable (and where, pray, are the strike songs of today?). Mostly the events depicted in the songs are easy to check from local history accounts. But this one, entirely characteristic as it is, concerns a mystery strike inasmuch as the Cheshire records, and even Henry Higginbotham’s comprehensive two volume work, Stockport, Ancient and Modern, doesn’t mention any serious stoppage in 1848 (so the Oldham Tinkers report). In aberrant moments, Gerry Kearns has been known to begin this song, “Come all you tons of soil…”

First published by Topic 1971
Oldham’s Burning Sands LP  TOPIC TSDL206 STEREO
The Oldham Tinkers
Ballads, Songs & Daft Ditties
First published by Topic 1971
Recorded at TPA (Tin Pan Ally) Studios 1971
Produced by A L Lloyd
Sleeve design Humphrey Weightman
Photography by Benny Kearns

Re-released on C.D. by Pier Records in 2003 under licence from Topic Records Ltd, England.
The C.D. The Oldham Tinkers, ‘Best O’ T’ Bunch’ Back Street Songs of Lancashire. PIERCD 506
A classic Lancashire folk album, available for the first time on CD, with four bonus tracks and full song notes by the band and A. L. Lloyd.