Old Mother Crawley

DESCRIPTION: At Plymouth Mother Crawley welcomes a ship and offers goods to sailors. The next day she asks for her pay and complains that sailors pay their girls first. "Our ship she's got orders for Botany Bay, The girls and the bumboats must all lose their pay"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle)
KEYWORDS: commerce ship shore drink food whore sailor
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 99, "Old Mother Crawley" (1 text)
Roud #1057
NOTES [67 words]: Bumboat: [noun] "a boat that brings provisions and commodities for sale to larger ships in port or offshore 'I bought a bunch of the tiny Azores bananas from a ~ under the side -- F.M. Ford.' 'Nelson's sailors had their ~ women who used to swarm aboard by rope's end and anchor chains -- H.W. Baldwin'" (source: Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged, 1976). - BS
Last updated in version 2.7
File: ReCi099

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.