Blighted Gardener, The; Cabbages and Turniptops

The Blighted Gardener (from de Marsan, 1870)
Sung by Harry Rickards
Music at Boosey and Co - 644 Broadway, New York

I once kept a garden, where the vegetables did grow,
But my fate is an ‘ard ‘un, you’ll say, when you know
How I loved a fair damsel, whose like I never saw;
So graceful and beautiful that I loved her far more … than all ….

My cabbages and my turniptops,
My celery and my Brokelo –
Oh! I’ll never love, no, I’ll never love
None but sweet Mary Jones

Her parents kept a beer shop, Mary served at the bar,
And used to draw custom from ever so far
With her eyes bright as diamonds, and hair black as jet,
She made me feel so funnified I'd entirely forget…  all about….  
 
When I stood at the bar, I would heave a deep sigh:
When she looked at me, I’d wink one eye;
I, one day, plucked up courage, looked as wretched as could be,
Said: “I love you sweet Mary, oh! will you have me … and all my …
 
Out of the bar-parlour rushed a sailor pell-mell,
Turned me out of the house, and shook me as well –
The naughty boys jeered me, with mud I got splashed,
Then they followed me home yes and smashed … all my ….
 
Well, she married that sailor, she is now a gay wife,
She’s left this poor gardener all wretched for life:
My sufferings and misery there is no one can tell:
I’m a melon - choly horticulturist and hereby bid farewell  … to all …

The Blighted Gardener: Cabbages and Turniptops is one of a number of songs by GW Hunt to have entered the traditional repertoire. Not to be confused with other traditional songs about gardeners, eg The bloody gardener (RN1700) or The broken-hearted gardener (RN7966). The Blighted Gardener was sung in the halls by George Leybourne and Harry Liston.

Harry Rickards (whose brief biography appears below) had great success with the song both in Australia and the United States. Rickards persuaded many leading performers to grant him the right to sing their songs in the “colonies” and this appears to be one of them. The song follows a theme familiar in both traditional and Music Hall song: a man comically failing in his attempts to woo a woman. It’s also been suggested that these songs represent the discomfort felt by many Victorian men at the emerging status of working women in those times.

Harry Rickards (1841 -1911) was the son of an engineer, but despite initially following his father’s trade, he preferred life as a performer. After some time as an amateur singing in various pubs, he successfully auditioned at Wilton’s in 1864 and rapidly became a recognised star of the London Halls. He appeared as a lion comique and his first really major hit was Capt Jinks of the Horse Marines which he started singing in around 1867. Like so many of the other stars of the day, in the 1870s he tried his hand at management but he was unsuccessful and ran up huge debts. In the 1870s and 1880s he toured America and Australia, emigrating to Australia in around 1890. In Australia he concentrated on management, and was instrumental in establishing Music Hall there.

At the moment I’ve been unable to access the full sheet music for The Blighted Gardener, but I have the words from an American song book published less than a year after it appeared in Britain.

The song has been collected twice from traditional singers in England:

• Gwilym Davies recorded Bill Train singing a song which was given the title “Brokenhearted Gardener”, but first line is “I once kept a garden where vegetables did grow” –  I  can’t access the recording but its almost certainly this song
• Brian Matthews recorded it from the singing of Alf Patching, under the title Sweet Mary Jo – the words are almost exactly as given above. You can access the recording here on the Sussex Traditions site:

Sources:

• VWML entry
• Kilgarrif Sing Us
• Sheet music (cover only): Victoria and Albert Museum
• Lyrics: Henry De Marsan’s Singer’s Journal No 45 p329 (1870)
• Australian Melodist Songbook: Warren Fahey’s Australian Folkore Unit
• Gae Anderson on Harry Rickard’s repertoire
• Bratton: Jones and the Working girl in Music Hall performance and style

Last Updated on February 25, 2024 by John Baxter | Published: October 2, 2020