Bill Whiting

Bill Whiting: lived in Longcot, Wiltshire, in a bungalow at the end of a quiet close, an ideal place to record.  Bill had been born in 1891 and, much to my amazement, not only knew some of the singers who had sung to Alfred Williams prior to the Great War, but actually remembered Williams visiting William Jefferies in Longcot to collect Jefferies’s songs.  Over a couple of years I tried to pump Bill’s memory for some of the songs that William Jefferies had sung - Captain Barnwell or The Bold Dragoon, say - but the only song to register was a version of Old Moll which Bill insisted he had learnt not from old Mr Jefferies but from members of the Jordan family, who had also sung to Alfred Williams.

Bill told me that singing was something that should be carried out in the pubs.  That was where he had learnt most of his songs.  The only one that had not come from pub sessions was his version of The Prickle Holly Bush which had always been sung at Harvest Suppers.  He had a good version of The Bailiff s Daughter of Islington, one similar to that sung by Freda Palmer, and an excellent version of Our Goodman, this again from the Jordans.  Bill sang a number of music hall songs, such as The Way of the World and George Le Brunn’s The Song of the Thrush which, I suspect, had come to Longcot via Chris Hall’s immensely popular early 78 recording (Edison Bell Winner 5181).