Ronald Leedham: Parlour Songs

Transcript

But I love hymn music and another thing we used to learn there, at these concerts, was parlour songs. The old Victorian parlour songs where they stand around the piano and sing to each other? Civilised, very civilised, lovely songs. The Volunteer Organist, do you know it? Do you know 'Turn Herbert’s Face to the Wall, Mother', oh dear. 'The Lady with the Baby', do you know that one?

"A woman was bathing her baby one night, the poor little thing was a pitiful sight, the poor little thing was so weak and so thin, it should have been bathed in a jug.
When she turned round to get the soap from the rack, it wasn’t a moment before she looked back, Oh where is my baby? In anguish she cried, oh where is my child? And the angels replied:
Your baby has gone down the plughole, your baby has gone" – don’t you know the one?"Your baby has gone down the plug, the poor little thing was so weak and so thin, it should have been bathed in a jug".

It went on and on and on like that, and they don’t sing those songs anymore, I used to love them. I used to love them, but that was my formal education at school.

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