Image: Five naval colleagues at Lyness, Isle of Hoy, Orkney, Scotland, where the main naval base for the British fleet, Scapa Flow, was based during WW2.
1943. From Mary Evans Picture library.
As I am writing this, Kirkwall is considering a Venice-style day-tax on cruiseship tourists visiting on day trips. In 1942, not everyone was so excited to go to Orkney.
Not a particularly new book this – What a Lovely War! British Soldiers’ Songs from the Boer War to the Present Day (1990) – but new to me, and an anecdote from wartime Orkney which you might enjoy. And, it’s dedicated to Hamish Henderson, whose wartime experience fed richly into an interest in the songs of ordinary folk.
A warning – there is some rudeness in what follows. And possibly historical performance practice might have been even ruder. Substitute your expletive of choice.
Roy Palmer’s introduction to this collection of often pawky material discusses how songs helped in a variety of ways to make aspects of soldiering bearable. Not all war poetry is profound in apparent content, but the function here is profoundly about music and creative activity more generally as a coping outlet for some pretty tough times. Soldiers wrote poetry for the most part for pre-existing, well-known tunes – and the occasional mismatch between melody and words probably made the song all the more amusing in performance.
The specific anecdote summarised here (from pp.147-150) is about a song from the troops stationed in Orkney in WW2. On the one hand, this was probably safer than most war arenas of the period. On the other hand, the 30,000 navy personnel living on Hoy were pretty bored a lot of the time, as shown by this song by Captain Hamish Blair. Palmer suggests it should be sung either to Baa Baa Black Sheep or Early in the Morning. Having tried both, I suggest the sheep have it.
This bloody town’s a bloody cuss
No bloody trains, no bloody bus;
And no one cares for bloody us
In bloody Orkney.
The bloody roads are bloody bad,
The bloody folks are bloody bad;
They make the brightest bloody sad
In Bloody Orkney.
All bloody cloud, all bloody rain,
No bloody kerbs, no bloody drains,
The council’s got no bloody brains,
In bloody Orkney.
The bloody flicks are bloody old,
The bloody seats are bloody cold,
You can’t get in for bloody gold,
In bloody Orkney.
The bloody dances make you smile
The bloody band is bloody vile;
It only cramps your bloody style
In bloody Orkney.
No bloody sport, no bloody games,
No bloody fun; the bloody dames
Won’t even give their bloody names
In bloody Orkney.
There’s nothing greets your bloody eye
But bloody sea, and bloody sky.
“Roll on demob” we bloody cry,
In bloody Orkney.
Seemingly, at the time this book was being written, the Orcadian newspaper offices were still selling copies of this but with a couple of verses added by an Orcadian in finest Scots Habbie:
The bloody Sassenachs have come
With bugle call and tuck o’ drum,
With smell of beer and army rum,
The cheeky sods.
What right have they to criticise
Who blow their trumpets to the skies
But all our folk and homes despise,
The bloody clods.
We love the winds, we like the rains,
We do have kerbs, and likewise drains,
We have no trams or railway trains,
But ships and luggers,
O could we hear the farewell knell
Of old St Magnus’ Church’s bell,
To send them all to bloody hell,
The cocky buggers.
Still, here we are, 80 years on from the end of WW2, and alas, no end to wars. Roy Palmer writes, “while working on this book I was asked by a radio interviewer whether it might not foster an unhealthy interest in war. My answer was, and is, that the proper study of war can help the just desire for peace.” (P.19) Well said.
Further Reading
- Roy Palmer, What a Lovely War!: British Soldiers’ Songs from the Boer War to the Present Day (London: Michael Joseph, 1990)
- More on Hoy in wartime
- Orkney Museums Hoy Wartime Trail