TSF Online meeting – 13th September 2026
Our next on-line meeting will consist of two papers:
David Stenton – The Forth Valley Songster
David will talk about his new book.
BACKGROUND – I moved to Falkirk in 2015 and made immediate friends through the local folk club. This prompted me to investigate local songs, which most collectors (notably Hamish Henderson and James Madison Carpenter) appeared to have ignored.
CRITERIA FOR INCLUSION – I sought songs about people, places, and events in the Forth Valley (mostly Falkirk, Stirling, and Dunblane). Each song needed a tune, often a greater challenge than identifying suitable texts.
SOURCES EXAMINED – Four books proved useful: two local, two more general. But the primary source was the NLS collection of chapbooks and broadsides published in Falkirk and Stirling between 1780 and 1840. Earlier songbooks, like Orpheus Caledonius (1725 and 1733) provided tunes, as did two major contemporary collections: Johnson’s Scots Musical Museum and Smith’s Scotish Minstrel.
OTHER SPECIFIC SOURCES – The three Roberts — Fergusson, Burns, and Tannahill — all penned songs concerning the region or its characters. Ewan MacColl, though born in Salford, enjoyed a childhood filled with songs from his parents’ friends, mostly ex-pat Scots.
TOP OF THE POPS -One song I’ve included stems from Fife but appears no fewer than nine times in surviving chapbooks published in Falkirk or Stirling. That song is still popular: “Maggy Lauder”.
David Stenton – My current involvement with folk song began around twenty years ago, when a friend invited me to join him at a “songs and tunes” session. This led to a fascinating journey aided by regulars at
Oxford’s Half Moon pub. I fell in love with Scottish song through a random raffle prize, a Jack Beck CD. Several visits to Scotland resulted in firm friendships with well-known singers of traditional songs. When I retired, a permanent move to Scotland generated more friends, more exposure to traditional songs. The Forth Valley Songster is my homage to Scotland’s thriving heritage.
Ben Lang – The Rose in June
There is evidence that the song has been repeatedly collected around the coasts of the Gulf of St Lawrence, but no evidence (so far) of it in circulation in Scotland, though the historical event described in the song clearly took place at Elie, Fife, Scotland on the night of 16th/17th December 1872.
Louis Killen is credited with bringing the song to Britain, making it the title track of his CD issued in 2001. This presentation is one result of hearing Lou sing it at Bodmin Folk Club around that time and feeling compelled not only to learn, and sing, the song but to research its history.
The local background preceding the wreck of the Rose in June, the wreck itself, and subsequent events are briefly described, along with some personal histories of the crew and their families.
A possible explanation, though purely speculative, for the song’s currency in Canada but apparent absence from Scotland is proposed.
A more complete document is available to anyone who wishes to see it, and a slightly modified version has been published by the St Monans Heritage Centre.
Acknowledgement is made to all those who have assisted in the gathering of information to enable this presentation to be made.
Ben Lang like many Cornish kids, was born into a singing family. His introduction to Folk Clubs was at the Tankards club in Falmouth in the 1960s followed shortly by a move to Sheffield for three years. Further travels via Peterborough, Gloucestershire, and Somerset followed, always accompanied by membership of local folk clubs. Ben and his wife Heather have been regular attendees at a number of traditional song weekends whenever possible since returning to Cornwall around 2000.
Joining the meeting
All you have to do is log in to the Zoom meeting a few minutes before the start time using this link.
Topic: TSF Online Meeting #82
Time: Sep 13, 2026 16:00 London
Join Zoom Meeting
https://tinyurl.com/3h9wjyec
Meeting ID: 812 8023 7467
Passcode: 722958
You will then be placed in the waiting room until the meeting starts. If you arrive later, you will be admitted as soon as practical; please try to log on in good time.
Keep this e-mail safely so that you can access the link when you need it. It will also be available on the ‘Meetings’ page of the TSF website – www.tradsong.org.
We will look forward to seeing you at the meeting.
Videos of Previous meetings
Videos of all the TSF Online meetings are available on the TSF YouTube channel – https://youtu.be/ty-Or2wGhkQ
TSF Online meeting 81 – 17th May 2026
Martin Graebe – The Parson and the Professor
In June 1890 the folk song collector, Sabine Baring-Gould, wrote to Francis Child, to tell him about the ballads that he had discovered in the West of England. Their correspondence continued for a further three years, during which Baring- Gould sent several ballads that were included in the later volumes of English and Scottish Popular Ballads. This was the first opportunity that Child had had to learn about contemporary balladry from England. In this presentation, Martin Graebe will examine and interpret the letters sent to Child and the remarks that Baring-Gould made about the ballads.
Martin Graebe is an independent researcher, writer, and singer, who has studied and written about many aspects of traditional song, with several scholarly articles published in Folk Music Journal. He has edited The Forgotten Songs of the Upper Thames: Folk Songs from the Alfred Williams Collection for the Ballad Partners. His book As I Walked Out: Sabine Baring-Gould and the Search for the Folk Songs of Devon and Cornwall (2017) received both the Folklore Society’s Katharine Briggs Award and the W. G. Hoskins Prize. He was the Secretary of the Traditional Song Forum from its inception in 1988 until December 2025. Martin and his wife, Shan, sing traditional songs together, with a repertoire based mainly on the traditional songs of southern England, and particularly those collected by Sabine Baring-Gould.
Stephen Miller – “Horsham’s grand old songster and bellringer.” – Henry Burstow (1826–191) and the William Albery MSS
William Albery (1864–1950) was the figure behind Henry Burstow’s Reminiscences of Horsham (1910) and his personal papers are now held by Horsham Museum. Material relating to Burstow is present and this talk will outline what there is to be found within as well as a number of other sources for Burstow’s life and times.
Stephen Miller formerly held posts at the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of Vienna. Research interests cover the folklore, folk song, and folklore of the Isle of Man, the Scottish folklorists, the Rev. Walter Gregor and William George Black, and the institutional history of The Folk-Lore Society.