FolkWorld #84 04/2025
Dai Woosnam's DAI-SSECTING THE SONG
Humber Bridge – Christopher Rowe
Before I tell you about the song I have selected as the eighteenth one to go under the Dai Woosnam microscope, let me preface this article with what has now become part of the wallpaper in this series: if you like, see the following four bullet points below as being akin to the “small print” in this contract between you the reader, and me the writer. Here goes...
It is a given that I might be talking total balderdash. After all, I have no monopoly on the truth. And even when my insights are proven correct, that does not stop you dear reader, from finding your own views to be totally antithetical to mine. But here is my news for you... we can both be right.
As Bob Dylan famously wrote “You’re right from your side/I’m right from mine”. And (much less famously) exclaimed in a press conference on his first full tour of the UK, when asked the meaning of a particular song... “My songs mean what they mean to YOU... man!”.
So don’t please write in vituperative language to the Editor to tell him that Dai is, to use the familiar English phrase, “barking up the wrong tree”. I might well be. And certainly every line of my views here are not endorsed by the Editorial Board of FolkWorld. Nor should they be.
Why have they hired me? Not sure. But my dear wife Larissa suggests it’s perhaps because they like the sound of my barking. I must say, I cannot top that conclusion...so I will end my preamble here, and get down to business.
Having gone to the USA for my first, second, fourth, fifth, eighth and fourteenth choices, and Ireland for my third and fifteenth, Scotland for my sixth, England for my seventh, ninth, tenth and twelfth, Canada for my
eleventh and seventeenth, and Australia for my thirteenth and sixteenth, I choose to go back to England again for my eighteenth.
The Humber Bridge is - to non Brits reading this - a significant structure that was opened in 1981. It is a slightly longer, near-replica of the first Severn Bridge (connecting Wales and England) opened in 1966.
The Humber Bridge connects Hull a seaport city in the county of Yorkshire, to the county of Lincolnshire. The River Humber estuary divides the two counties, and for centuries ferry travel was the only way to avoid a lengthy circuitous road journey from one to the other, via the town of Goole. For many years locals had been clamouring for a bridge to connect the two sides, but central government said there was no money in the kitty for such a massive expenditure.
And then Labour Party politician Barbara Castle, canvassing for votes for Harold Wilson’s government, made a vital promise.
The song refers to the long-drawn-out saga of getting the bridge built, and the lyrics exhibit Rowe’s wit and imagination in describing the previous ‘crossing the Humber‘ travails of Romans and Normans… not to mention the conflict in the English Civil War.
Here is a spirited version of the Humber Bridge song by the Derbyshire group of blessed memory, The Ripley Wayfarers… see link below.
They are fairly faithful to Rowe’s lyrics, but I note at one point they do not sing ‘Hessle foreshore’, but sing HUMBER foreshore…
Quite why I am not sure - it cannot have been that they were uncertain of how to pronounce the Hull suburb of Hessle (HEZ-il) - but alas it is a clear mistake as the song reference is to the Royalist army in the Civil War clearly approaching Hull from the north/west, and arriving in Hessle then realising that Hull is a bastion for the Parliamentarians, and thus immediately wanting to deviate and go south to Lincolnshire… but searching in vain to find a bridge.
Thus to insert ‘Humber’ for ‘Hessle’, shows an unawareness of the finer geographical aspect. (For it would not in itself show that they are trying to leave Yorkshire for Lincolnshire.) That said however, it is I admit no big deal… and they do a fine version of a great song… https://tinyurl.com/bdcw7uwp
But the definitive version is by the man himself on guitar, with Ian Clark accompanying him instrumentally (and vocally on chorus)… it is the opening track on their 1971 LP…
And so here are the lyrics of what they have just sang…
The Humber Bridge
(words and melody by Christopher Rowe)
In our early history Julius Caesar crossed the sea
To this island off the Northern coast of France.
Then some other Romans came to treat us just the same
And they stayed a little longer just by chance.
They came, they saw, they conquered everything that they could see
'Til they reached the River Humber, that noble estuary.
But they burnt their boats behind them not thinking it could be
That the ancient Britons hadn't built a bridge.
CHORUS
Will they ever bridge the Humber?
Will they ever span it oe’r
Is it always an exception to the rule?
Is it such a privilege not to have a Humber Bridge
And to have to keep on going round by Goole?
In a thousand years or more there arrived on England's shore
A noble duke who came from Normandy.
Duke William was his name and conqueror he became
For he conquered all the land that he could see.
But one day he came up North and there to his surprise
As he reached the River Humber he was made to realise
While Romans could build straighter roads and walls of every size,
They never tried to build a Humber Bridge.
CHORUS
In the English civil war when they fought on Marston Moor
And the Royalists were scattered far and wide.
They disturbed the peaceful slumber of the quiet River Humber
But they knew that Hull was not a place to hide.
For the city favoured Cromwell and there they could not stay
They headed for the river to cross without delay.
But on reaching Hessle foreshore they found to their dismay
No one had ever built a Humber Bridge.
CHORUS
The year of 1966 found Harold Wilson in a fix
With his overall majority down to two.
He just couldn't face rejection at the Hull North by-election
Barbara Castle came to see what she could do.
There is one thing I can promise, she assured us on that day,
You'll get your Humber Bridge and there won't be much delay.
But she forgot to mention that a squeeze was on the way
And still we're waiting for a Humber Bridge.
CHORUS
Now they've built across the Severn, they've built across the Tay
And they've even spanned the mighty Firth of Forth.
But an increase on this number with a bridge across the Humber
Appears to be more trouble than it's worth.
Gas may flow in from the ocean, oil may spurt out from the sea
We could join the Common Market if the French would just say ‘oui’*
Then in Whitehall and in Westminster perhaps they'll start to see
That at last we really need a Humber Bridge.
CHORUS
Postscript by Christopher Rowe
In 1981 when at last the bridge was done
It was opened by Her Majesty the Queen
It was suspended by steel/cables spun by spinning wheel
The longest that the world had ever seen
But it was financed by a debt and so we had to pay
At first it was a pound to go across each way each day
But now it's two pounds seventy with increases on the way
And we can't afford to cross the Humber Bridge.
Will they ever pay the loan off? Will it ever be free?
Is it always an exception to the rule?
Is it such a privilege just to drive across a bridge
Not to have to keep on going round by Goole?
*in 1967 when this song was written, it coincided with French President Charles de Gaulle’s famous repeated emphatic ‘non!’ to any suggestion that Britain could be allowed to enter the European Common Market. And hence that witty French reference in the lyric.
(My personal opinion is that De Gaulle’s attitude was singularly ungrateful, since we Brits took him in and trained all those Free French fighting men who managed to make it to Britain in all sorts of small craft following the Fall of France in June 1940. His veto to UK membership hardly showed a generosity of spirit to us Brits whose sons had died - for France’s freedom - in their many thousands barely over two decades earlier, and lay buried in French soil.)
In April 2001, I visited a folk club in Cottingham in Hull. I got talking to a chap over a drink. He asked me how long I had lived on Humberside. I replied, less than 18 months… but added that back in the early 1970s I had heard the ‘Humber Bridge’ song sung by a floor-singer in a folk club, and got the lyrics from her and committed them to memory...and I made particular reference to the brilliant ‘if the French would just say oui’ line. This was a reference to De Gaulle’s famous aforementioned refusal to accept British membership of the then 6-strong European Economic Community… an organisation we Brits were ‘allowed’ to join 6 years later.
But I wondered, why was I hearing a much weaker substitute line, viz… ‘or something else maybe’ (as in the above recording of the Ripley Wayfarers, also from 1971)? It turned out, according to my new acquaintance, that indeed ‘or something else maybe’ was Christopher’s original line, and it quickly fell victim to Christopher’s pizazz as a lyric writer… and Christopher adopted his new ‘just say oui’ line (as can be heard on the opening track of his LP (link above)…
So clearly the Ripley Wayfarers had not got the message as to Christopher’s lyric change, and were faithfully singing the original line.
So out of respect for that chance conversation, I re-inserted the ‘if the French would just say oui’ line, in my complete lyrics (above), as it is so much classier… not to mention it being ‘historically accurate’. DW
Here I have found Christopher and Ian’s very first recording of the song… it is on a limited release, just 2 songs per side… interestingly they sing the original line viz… ‘or something else maybe’…
How my heart fell, not that long later following my April meeting, when I was told of Christopher’s death… he had died on 4th Sept that same year of 2001… incidentally, just a week before 9/11… at just 59 years old…
This is from a news report of the day…
Songsmith and broadcaster dies
12th September 2001 - A RESPECTED North Yorkshire broadcaster, writer and singer has died after a long illness.
Christopher John Rowe was born in 1942 and led a rich and varied life both in and out of the limelight.
He appeared on the opening night of Yorkshire Television in the first ever Calendar programme before making many appearances on radio and TV for BBC, Anglia and YTV in light entertainment, news and educational programmes.
He led a weekly programme on Radio Humberside and wrote a column in the Hull Daily Mail, both known as Roundabout Folk.
In 1967, together with Ian Clark, he wrote a series of songs on Hull and the locality, best known for the campaigning Humber Bridge and the irreverent Gloria Victoria.
In 1970, Christopher and Ian released the records Patterns Of A Journey, Folk Train, with Mike Donald and then, in 1975, Seagulls Ride The Wind.
Christopher also wrote for and appeared on a number of children's TV programmes and in 1975 he published two songbooks - Sing A Song Of Allsorts and The Land Of The Wrong Way Round.
Alongside broadcasting, he participated in an extensive series of concerts all over Yorkshire and in Cornwall, his mother's birthplace.
In the academic world, he published a widely known textbook, People And Chips, in 1986.
Christopher first met his wife Pat as a fellow broadcaster at Radio Humberside. They married in 1974 and lived in Beverley and Cottingham until 1996 when they moved to Wass, North Yorkshire.
He joined the local ceilidh band, Byland Rigg, and helped Pat with the Film Society at the Meeting House in Helmsley.
Christopher Rowe died peacefully on Tuesday, September 4, in St Catherine's Hospice, Scarborough after an eight-month illness.
His funeral was held at St Hilda's Church, Ampleforth, yesterday.
A collection was taken for St Catherine's Hospice.
Updated: 09:22 Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Christopher left a significant body of work… including two further albums with Ian, in 1973 and 1977. But his output was much bigger, though many of his witty topical songs alas, were only recorded by radio broadcasters and never made it to vinyl. And methinks many of those great little songs have inevitably been lost/wiped by the radio and TV stations who originally commissioned them… often wanting them at the drop of a hat.
But this song remains. A little masterpiece. I visited the Lincolnshire town of Barton-on-Humber in the late 1970s, and saw the Bridge being constructed… and sang the song ‘sotto voce’ as I walked towards a better vantage point to see the massive construction taking place.
Here is a relatively recent photo of the biggest local employer cleverly using the bridge for publicity purposes…!!
A song with an unforgettably attractive melody, and wit making itself evident in every line and every glorious rhyme. The way Mr Rowe’s words sit on their musical note, is quite exceptional. He had some real gift in his ability to match lyric to melody.
Thank you dear soul, for a song that will never die in the memory of anyone who has a heart.
TTFN. Dai Woosnam. Grimsby UK. Feb 8th, 2025.
Photo Credits:
(1) The Ripley Wayfarers,
(2)-(4) Christopher Rowe & Ian Clark,
(5) Humber Bridge (unknown/website).
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