The Turnip Hoer's Song. Fred Perrier & Villagers From West Lavington, Wiltshire. 1950

Details

Description

Traditional English folk music at its most basic. The "turmut" is local dialect for turnip and the "fly" refers to the black fly that attacks the turnip if not hoed often. Fred Perrier, a Wiltshire farmer, learned this song about 1900.

I be a turmut hoer, from Wiltshire I do come
My parents they be workin' folks, George Watchstraw is my name.
'Twas on a summer's morning, all at the break of day.
I took my hoe and away did go, some fifteen miles away.

CHORUS
Then some delights in haymaking, and some delights in mowing,
But of all the jobs as I like best,
Give I the turmut hoeing.
For the fly, the fly, the fly be on the turmuts
It's all my eye for I to try
To keep them off the turmuts.

Now I be a tidy sort of a chap, I soon got I a place,
Like many Turk, I went to work and took it by the piece.
I hoed away quite gaily for good old Farmer Flower,
Who vowed and sweared that I just were a
Tidy old turmut hoer.

CHORUS