Allan Barber

This tragic story, with it's painfully irregular lines and tragically stupid protagonists, nevertheless still has the ability to move.

Notice that it's author, unlike Sir Arnold Bax, did not forbid incest.

Allan Barber appears on Sid's album Boiled In The Bag

You virgins all I pray draw near, tis you I am inviting,

I'll sing a song of sickness, pain and death, and terrible handwriting.

It's of a lad of Cromer town, who dwelt down by the harbour;

He was a lugworm digger bold, and they called him Allan Barber.

This young man had a tender heart, likewise a full-sore liver;

He always feared infection, and he often had the shivers.

Now Allan loved a maiden fair, stout hearted and courageous,

But he shunned her when she grew thick around the waist,

In case it was contagious.

One May Day down at Cromer pier, the lads and lasses busy,

A-dancing of the morris, but it made poor Allan dizzy.

"Oh doctor, doctor, I feel ill - please write my love a letter,

To tell her she's the only one can make me feel .... better".

So the doctor's writ a letter long to Allan's heart's desire,

But she could not read the writing so she tossed it on the fire.

Oh curséd be that cruel note, it burned like flaming tinder;

The house took fire and she was burned unto a flaming cinder.

When Allan heard his love was dead he had a strange reaction;

He clean forgot his illness, for he loved her to distraction.

So, now, Allan took his love to church, not to be consummated,

But to bury her in the cold, cold clay - though she'd already been cremated.

And he stood by her open grave, his tears a flowing river;

He cried "Bury me beside my love"; so they pushed him in with her.

Oh bitter, bitter was his fall, his landing still more bitter;

For Allan died the very hour when he had ne'er felt fitter.

So you virgins all this warning take; if life you'd be enhancing,

Put not your faith in doctors' arts, and never try morris dancing.

Copyright Chris Sugden, 1993