Peter Bellamy: The Transports, a ballad opera CD Track Listing

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Peter Bellamy The Transports, a ballad opera (1977)
'''The Transports''' a ballad opera by Peter Ballamy, arranged by Dolly Collins, with:-\n* Mike Waterson as ''Henry Cabell''\n* Norma Waterson as ''Susannah Holmes''\n* Martin Carthy as ''The Turnkey''\n* Nic Jones as ''The Father''\n* June Tabor as ''The Mother''\n* A L Lloyd as ''Abe Carman''\n* Cyril Tawney as ''The Shantyman''\n* Martin Winsor as ''The Convict''\n* Vic Legg as ''The Coachman''\n* The Watersons as ''The Transport''\n* Peter Bellamy as ''The Street Singer''\n* Dave Swarbrick: fiddle\n* Roddy Skeaping: director\n* Philippa Davies: flute\n* Sophia Wilson: oboe\n* Keith Thompson: whistle/Garklein-fl

Category

: Music

Tags

: music songs tracks folk Folk

1. Peter Bellamy - Overture (05:39)
   THE STORY OF THE TRANSPORTS
2. Peter Bellamy - The ballad of Henry & Susannah part 1 (01:02)
   In 1783 a 19-year-old youth named Henry Cabell, from the Suffolk village of Mendham, was sentenced, along with his father and another man named Abraham Carman, to be hanged for burgling a country house at Alburgh in south Norfolk. There is no hint, in the
3. Peter Bellamy - Us poor fellows (05:14)
   Cabell senior and Abraham Carman were publicly executed on the high green mound of the castle, while a crowd stood in the cattle market below and watched them swing from the gallows.\n
4. Peter Bellamy - The Robber's song (02:50)
   Young Henry Cabell's sentence was, however, commuted to transportation for fourteen years. He was kept in the castle gaol, among some forty or fifty other felons, to await shipment overseas.
5. Peter Bellamy - The ballad of Henry & Susannah part 2 (02:16)
   Towards the end of the same year, 1783, another 19-year-old, a girl named Susannah Holmes, from the south Norfolk village of Thurlton, was sentenced to death for the theft of some household linen and silver (value
6. Peter Bellamy - The leaves in the woodland (04:52)
   -
7. Peter Bellamy - The ballad of Henry & Susannah part 3 (02:34)
   Henry and Susannah were imprisoned for three years - simple, unlettered young villagers, awaiting penal servitude in some unknown country far across the ocean, for offences which would nowadays be met, in all probability, by suspended sentences and a peri
8. Peter Bellamy - I once lived in service (04:50)
   The reason for the long wait was that 1783 was the year in which a defeated Britain recognised the independence of the United States, and was thereby deprived of the American colonies to which she used to transport her convicts. Crime was rife in the town
9. Peter Bellamy - Norwich Gaol (04:45)
   At last, in 1786, it was decided to send a fleet of prison ships to found a colony in New South Wales, on the east coast of Australia, which had been explored by Captain Cook some seventeen years previously. There, in a hitherto uncultivated continent on
10. Peter Bellamy - Sweet loving friendship (03:43)
    Meanwhile, in the mixture of squalor, barbarity and laxity that prevailed in an 18th century gaol, Henry Cabell and Susannah Holmes had contrived to become lovers.
11. Peter Bellamy - The ballad of Henry & Susannah part 4 (02:57)
    In the spring of 1786 Susannah bore a son, named Henry after his father. Henry Cabell - described at the time as "a fine, healthy young fellow", in spite of his years in prison - was devoted to the mother and child, and pleaded repeatedly but in vain to b
12. Peter Bellamy - The black and bitter night (07:10)
    Henry Cabell desperately renewed his petition to be allowed to marry, and begged to be transported along with Susannah, but was refused. So, in November 1786, the turnkey, John Simpson, set out with Susannah and her baby, and two other women prisoners, on
13. Peter Bellamy - The humane Turnkey part 1 (01:49)
    Fortunately, Simpson was both a kindly man and a strong character. (He became known, after this incident, as the Humane Turnkey). "Having once before been with his lordship on a matter of humanity", he resolved on a direct approach to the Home Secretary,
14. Peter Bellamy - The Plymouth Mail (04:27)
    So he set off on the first coach back to London, nursing the baby on his knee, and feeding it as best he could at the inns on the way. In London, he left the child with a careful woman, and - followed by a sympathetic crowd - went straight to Lord Sydney'
15. Peter Bellamy - The humane Turnkey part 2 (02:20)
    Simpson then waited in the hall, ran to Lord Sydney as he came downstairs, and begged him to sign the order. it stands to the credit of this 18th century grandee that, having been waylaid in his own house by a mere turnkey, he listened to his story and "w
16. Peter Bellamy - The Green Fields of England (05:32)
    Thus it was that Henry, Susannah and their infant son eventually sailed in May 1787 in what is known to historians of Australia as the First Fleet. The convoy consisted of eleven ships, carrying 600 male and 178 female convicts, 200 Marine guards, two yea
17. Peter Bellamy - Roll Down (04:24)
    This was not the only precedent he set. For Lord Sydney's instructions in London, that Henry and Susannah were to be married before the convoy sailed, had apparently miscarried. They were in fact wedded on Feb. 10th, 1788, along with four other couples, i
18. Peter Bellamy - The still and silent ocean (04:25)
    The landing in Sydney Cove was only the beginning of fresh tribulations for the unhappy convicts. The Government had comfortably assumed in London that from the proceeds of agriculture, stockbreeding and fisheries the settlement would very soon become sel
19. Peter Bellamy - The ballad of Henry & Susannah part 5 (03:23)
    And yet Henry Kable throve. His character was obviously as rugged as his physique. (Tradition also has it that he was red-haired). He became first an overseer of his fellow-convicts, and then chief constable of the new settlement. Being freed on the expir
20. Peter Bellamy - The Convict's Wedding Dance (01:06)
    As for Susannah, she bore Henry Kable ten more children besides young Henry who was born in Norwich gaol, and who survived to become captain of one of his father's ships. Henry, senior, lived to the ripe age of 82, died in the odour of respectability, and