Here’s the video of The Bonny Pit Laddie, a song/tune from Northumbria, printed in the 1882 Northumbrian Minstrelsy, with earlier versions printed elsewhere in 1812 and 1770.
In the version I know, each line is sung twice, meaning that you’ll get through the tune twice, but in others I’ve found the second and fourth lines are follow one another making up one B section:
The bonnie pit laddie, the canny pit laddie, the bonnie pit laddie for me, oh (x 2)
He sits in a hole as black as the coal and brings the bright silver for me, oh (x 2)
The bonnie pit laddie, the canny pit laddie, the bonnie pit laddie for me, oh (x 2)
He sits on his cracket & hews in his jacket & brings the bright silver for me, oh (x 2)
The pit in question would have been a coal mine, and the ‘bright silver’ refers to money earned. For those of you in education, or for anyone who wants to know more about mining songs, there is a great digital info pack available from the EFDSS website here.
Deborah is a violinist and violist specialising in English folk music. She trained in viola and Baroque viola at Birmingham Conservatoire, before returning to her first love of traditional music, song and dance.
Deborah has developed a passion for playing for dancing since joining her first ceilidh band at age 13. She is a member of Stepling, a band performing English music, step-dance, song and percussion, and also plays with Folk Dance Remixed, a dance company combining traditional dance with hip hop and street dance styles, with whom she has performed as such events as Car Fest, the Southbank's Festival of Love and Glasgow's Commonwealth Games Festival.
Deborah records on a regular basis for a number of people, including The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra, and for Laurel Swift's 'Travelling with Thomas' musical.
She teaches music, song and dance regularly for The English Folk Dance and Song Society, as well as on a freelance basis for various workshop series, festivals and music services. Deborah recently completed The Teaching Musician MA degree course at Trinity Laban, graduating with Distinction.
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