Walter Pardon

Walter Pardon (4 March 1914 – 9 June 1996) was an English carpenter and folk singer from Knapton, Norfolk, England. He learned songs and tunes from older members of his family and remembered and performed them at a time when most people of his generation were uninterested in traditional music. He was then able to pass his songs and tunes on to a new generation of folk music collectors and performers.^[1]

Early life

Walter William Pardon was born and brought up in the cottage in Knapton where his mother, Edith Gee, was born in 1874. He was an only child from a family in which most men were farm workers. He was apprenticed to a carpenter at the age of 14, and worked in that trade all his life. He spent four years in the army at Aldershot during the Second World War, still working as a carpenter. After his service in the Army he returned to the cottage in Knapton, where he lived for the rest of his life.^[1]

He learned most of his songs from his uncle, Billy Gee, who lived with Walter and his family. Billy Gee, in turn, had learned much of his repertoire from his father, Thomas Cook Gee. Walter believed his grandfather had learned songs from broadsheets. There were few opportunities for Walter to sing in his younger days. Most people of his generation weren't much interested in old songs, and while his uncle had sung in pub sessions in a nearby town, these sessions were dying out in his neighbourhood by the time he was old enough to attend. His family would exchange songs at Christmas gatherings in the cottage, but these stopped when his mother died in 1953. Walter's father died in 1957, and Walter lived alone in the cottage from then on. By his own account he would sit on the stairs in the cottage playing the tunes of his songs on his melodeon.^[1][2][3][4]

Career as a traditional singer and informant

In the early 1970s Walter Pardon's nephew Roger Dixon, a history teacher, who had as a child heard Walter singing when visiting his parents, persuaded him to record twenty of his songs on tape. Dixon gave a copy of the tape to singer Peter Bellamy, who had been his pupil. Bellamy passed the tape on to record producer Bill Leader.^[1] Walter Pardon's first LP, "A Proper Sort" was released in 1975, followed by "Our Side of the Baulk" in 1977. He appeared at folk clubs and festivals and was invited by A L Lloyd to join a group of English singers attending the American Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.^[2][3] Two more LPs were issued in 1982 and 1983.^[1]

Many folk song collectors interviewed and recorded him, including Bill Leader, Mike Yates, Rod Stradling, and Roy Palmer.

Retirement and Death

"In 1989, when Walter had passed his seventy-fifth birthday, he decided that his voice was no longer as strong as it had been, and so he stopped singing in public."^[5] Walter Pardon died in 1996, and was buried in Swafield churchyard. In 1997 a memorial concert was held at Conway Hall, London to raise money for a headstone.^[2]

Field Recordings

There are a number of field recordings of Walter Pardon singing songs and ballads, and playing, as well as interviews and other material available online at the British Library Sound Archive in the Reg Hall and Roy Palmer collections.^[6][7]

Repertoire

Walter Pardon knew at least 182 songs. Some of these, for example "A Ship to Old England Came" (Roud 1424) are rare, and have not been recorded from other traditional singers. As well as ballads such as "The Trees they do Grow High" (Roud 31, Laws O35) and Lord Lovel (Roud 48, Child 75), he sang music hall songs such as "Old Brown's Daughter" (Roud 1426).^[2] Among his more unusual songs were anthems of the nineteenth century National Agricultural Labourers' Union led by Joseph Arch, such as "We Meet Today in Freedom's Cause" (Roud 1774) and "An Old Man's Advice" (Roud 1482).^[8]

Discography

Film and Video

In 1983 the American musician and film-maker John Cohen made "The Ballad and the Source", described as "a sensitive musical portrait of Walter Pardon".^[10]

Edge Documentaries produced a video, "Walter Pardon, a life in song" with interviews with neighbours, friends, and folk luminaries for the Walter Pardon Memorial concert at The Atrium, North Walsham, early 2014.^[11]

References

External links

• Dictionary of National Biography entry
• Obituary in The Independent
• Stand Up Ye Men of Labour - The Socio-Political Songs of Walter Pardon
• Put a Bit of Powder on it, Father (Sleeve notes)
• Article on Walter Pardon's melodeon playing
• British Library Sound Archive; Reg Hall Archive
• British Library Sound Archive; Roy Palmer Archive