1.  Stormy Weather – song

 Finn:  Now that song tells the story of my adventure on the Fiery Queen – and in a few week’s time you’ll be able to see the whole tale of our battle to save her and the Captain once we were back home in Bristol….but this evening we are going to give you a taste of songs that would have been around in those early Victorian years in Bristol and the things children used to get up to.

2.

Finn: Intro etc as per Nursery Rhyme medley - click here for full details

 Nursery Rhyme medley with actions and clapping  

3.

Redd:  On board sailing ships sailors had very hard physical work to do.  Many of the tasks involved a number of sailors working together for example, to hoist the sails or the anchor. 

 Libby:  To help them work as a team they sang slow, rhythmical tunes.  Sometimes there would be a fiddler on board to play and help them – and when they could rest, they would dance to variations of the tunes. 

 Elspeth:  The tunes are called hornpipes and in Bristol they played ……. the Bristol hornpipe. 

Bristol hornpipe – tune and dance

4.

Lily:  A lot of the children led very sad lives and begged on the streets – this is a song beggars used to sing.

Soul Cake– song – Redd play tune x 2 - Alice recorder play tune once through – singers walk on singing, sing song x 2, then walk off as the song is finishing.

5.

Finn:   People used to sing lots of songs because there were no televisions or electronic games.  Being an island, we needed to use the sea for bringing in all sorts of produce and goods from abroad so a lot of songs were about loved ones at sea

Seafaring medley – songs and instrumentals – Blow the Wind Southerly/My Bonnie lies over the ocean/ Bobby Shafto

Interval  

Part 2

1.

Finn:  Do any of you know the Hatchett Inn?  It is the oldest pub in Bristol licensed in 1606.  It used to have a cock pit and plenty of money exchanged hands at the fights.

 Well the Fiery Queen’s first mate – Able - he was always trying to do a dodgy deal and whilst we were docked in China, he smuggled a couple of Shanghai cockerels on board – biggest birds you ever did see!  Now cock fighting was made illegal in England in 1835 but he knew where he could still make a fortune – he didn’t care if it was illegal or not.  But although the Shanghai chickens were very big, they weren’t necessarily the best fighters……….

 Shanghai Chicken – song  

2.  

Libby:  We are going to play a popular dance tune played in Bristol in the 1800s and is called the Merry Girls of Bristol.

 Merry Girls of Bristol – fiddle tune – 6 dancers skipping round

3.

Lily:  Recipes for Hot Cross Buns have been around for centuries.  The earliest record of the rhyme about Hot Cross Buns is in a publication of 1798.  However, there are earlier references to the rhyme as a street cry in 1733:

Good Friday come this month, the old woman runs
With one or two a penny hot cross buns

Hot Cross Buns – song, music and actions

4.  Finn:  There were many other street vendors during this period – all trying to earn a few pennies to buy food for their families.

 Street Cries Medley  

 5.  Lily:  In our adventure with the Fiery Queen, Monkey had to “borrow” an extremely important letter from one of the villains.  We used this dance to distract him 

Buttered Peas – tune and dance