The Peoples Songbag

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31316, 11 March 1967, Page 16

The Peoples Songbag

GEORGE’S OVEN

fSpeciallti written for “The Preet" by DEKRICK ROONEY)

Charles Dibden, author of the eighteenth-century musical comedy, “The Milkmaid,” was the equivalent in his time of such twentiethcentury songwriters as Richard Rogers—with a dash of Pete Seeger added. Dibden combined his songwriting activities with an interest in travel, and in 1787,. dissatisfied with his treatment in London theatres, he began a tour of England with the object of raising money to go to India. Ten years later he made a similar tour of Scotland and the South of England, and he turned material gathered on his journeys into some interesting early travel books. In Gloucester he left a ballad in memory of his visit, the first two lines of which are: The stwuns that built Gaarge Ridler’s oven, And they quem from Bleakeney’s Quaar; And Gaarge he wur a jolly ould mon. And his yead it growed above his yare.

The implication, clearly, is that Dibden understood better than most outsiders the implications of “George Ridler’s Oven,” a well-known Gloucestershire song (in local dialect) which was also the theme song of the Gloucestershire Society, a secret club

of the seventeenth century. The song was always preceded by a shout of “The stwuns (stones), the stwuns, the stwuns, the stwuns”; and the first verse was: George Ridler's oven. I’ve been told, contains some curious jokes, sirs. And very much of it is said by Gloucester folks, sirs. The Gloucestershire Society was a curious alliance of Roman Catholics and Presbyterians, who managed to bury their differences in a mutual dislike for Oliver Cromwell. George Ridler was Charles I, and bis oven was the Cavalier Party. The stones with which the oven was built were the followers of the Marquis of Worcester, who held out at Raglan Castle until August, 1646. When the song says that George Ridler’s yead (head) grew above his yare (hair) it does not mean that he was bald and bearded; but that the head of state was the crown, which the king wore. The song goes on to describe George’s three sons, who sang in harmony, and these have been interpreted as representing the British Constitution in the form of King, Lords and Commons—the treble, the mean and the bass. All of which goes to show that there is no telling where a rebel may be hiding.