Behind the Songs

The following articles about the stories behind some of our local songs appeared in East Anglian Traditional Music Trust newsletters from 2011 onwards.

Peter the Paynter

Behind the Songs No. 1 - Peter the Paynter

by Katie Howson

John Howson collected this unusual song from Roy Last of Mendlesham Green. The village is featured in the EATMT series of articles "Portrait of a Village" and Roy himself was the subject of our “Personal Portrait” no. 22.  Roy learned this song, which he called “Peter the Paynter” (and confirmed this spelling) from an auntie in Walsham-le-Willows, who had collected some song sheets (”broadsides”) in an exercise book. The broadsheets were probably brought to the village by an itinerant ballad-seller, and usually cost a penny each. Sometimes tunes were suggested, but often it was just the words that were given, but they were always intended to be sung!

Some years ago, I was fortunate enough to have a wonderful year on secondment from my teaching job to work in the Suffolk Record Office as education assistant for primary schools. Part of what I did was produce a resource for schools based on Suffolk folk songs, with historical documents and photographs as background (”From the Horse’s Mouth”, long since out of print, but some of the material is to be incorporated in a new publication from Suffolk County Council’s Music Services department). Whilst digging around in boxes of ephemera, my boss and inspiration, Clive Paine, pointed out a broadside that I had not noticed previously, and a song of Roy’s, that had, until then, seemed to be no more than a story, turned out to be a partial narrative of an actual event that took place just outside Bury St Edmunds in 1844.

The following fragment was all that Roy remembered from his auntie’s book:

“Twas at the town of Bury they quickly broke the news:
Paynter he had broken gaol and left behind his shoes.
Now the ditches they were not too wide and the gates not too high,
And over them, just like a buck, poor Paynter he did fly.
Now run and jump as well he might, ‘twas all of no avail:
He was run to ground at Rougham and brought back to Bury gaol.”

The original broadside. together with newspaper articles from the time, revealed that the man was actually Leach Borley, commonly known as “Painter” Borley, a farmworker who lived in Sapiston and worked at Rymer Point farm in Troston. At the time of his escape (from a prison van) he was awaiting trial for arson - a common form of rebellion and protest against changing working conditions and poverty in that period - and was sentenced to transportation. Borley was well-known as a fast runner and had special running shoes (“ankle-jacks”) made for him which proved to be vital evidence in identifying him. The last verse of the broadside, printed by Birchinalls of Bury St Edmunds, has a rather admiring tone, and a request showing without doubt where the writer’s sympathies lay:

“He is an active young man, it’s known to be true,
He done his work so clever when he bid them all adieu,
Then a proclamation form the Queen there surely ought to be,
Publish’d in the papers for to set poor Painter free.”

Discography
“Peter the Paynter” sung by Roy Last is on VT130CD Who Owns the Game, available from our online shop, along with the biggest selection of East Anglian traditional song
and music.