| AKA | Slap dab Handy man |
| First Published | 1896 |
| Writer/composer | Fred Murray, Fred Leigh | Roud | RN1754 |
| Music Hall Performers | Frank Seeley |
| Folk performances | Source Singers New Arkansas Travellers, USA; 1927 Poacher, Cyril England ; Suffolk; 1972 |
From monologues.co.uk I’m a very handy man To save a bit ‘oof’s my plan One day last week I said to my wife Our yard wants a wash upon my life So I’ll go and do the job And I did so help me bob Made a pail of whitewash, set to work And the old girl helped me like a Turk. Slap-dab! Slap-dab! Up and down the brickwork Slap-dab! All daylong In and out the corners Round the Johnny Horners We were a pair of fair clean goners Slap-dab! Slap with the whitewash brush Talk about a fancy ball But I put more whitewash on the old woman Than I did upon the garden wall. The missus, I must now confess She put me in her old nightdress Her nightcap, too, she made me wear She was dressed like me, so we looked a pair She held up the pail so high And I made that whitewash fly Every now and then I heard a squall I was taking the old girl’s face for the wall. Feeling very dry just here We went to get a drop of beer And the kids from the house next door, I think Attracted by the whitewash, came and had a drink There’s got to be an inquest now And I am in a dreadful row I have done with economical schemes For every night in all my dreams.
A British Music Hall song which perhaps unexpectedly turns up on an American “Hillbilly” record in the 1920s. It appears in the NEHI 3 CD Box Set My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean – see the entry for Tickle-ickle-um. It was also fondly remembered on this side of the Atlantic.
Later singers may have learn it from the singing of George Lamb – it appeared on his 1962 Folkways LP of London Music Hall and Pub songs She was poor but she was honest.
The original music hall song was written by Fred Murray and Fred Leigh and performed by Frank Seeley, who was advertised as “causing a sensation with the song” in Halls across London in the summer of 1896 (The Era May- Aug 1896).
Frank Seeley (b?-1913), performed for some time as part of a double act with Blossom Seeley as “Seeley and West“. He performed regularly on the London stage between 1895 and 1913, often billed as an “eccentric comedian”. His best remembered songs are Clap Hands, Daddy’s Come Home and Let Go Eliza! More on research on Seeley is needed…
Update: I have just come across this review of Seeley performing at The Bedford in 1905 – such was Seeley’s popularity amongst the young people of Camden that they organised lookalike competitions!
The Harbour Lights Trio in 2019:
The New Arkansas Travellers in 1927:
Sources:
- VWML entry
- Kilgarrif Sing Us
- Lyrics: monologues.co.uk
- Worldcat entry
- NEHI 3CD review on Mustrad
- Max Tyler: Palace of Varieties: the story of a BBC radio programme, Music Hall studies 5, p207-211 (2010)
Last Updated on April 30, 2023 by John Baxter | Published: February 3, 2021
