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The Smacksman
Tom Brown
Once I was a schoolboy
And I stopped at home with ease.
Now I am a smacksman
And I sail the rolling sea.
I thought I'd like seafaring life,
But very soon I found
It was not all plain sailing boys
When out on the fishing ground.
So coil away the trawl-warp boys,
Let 's heave up the trawl,
When we
get our fish on board
We'll have another haul.
Straightway to the
capstan
And merrily spin around/spin away / heave away,
That's the cry in the middle of the night,
Haul the
trawl—boys—haul.
Every night in winter
As regular as the clock,
We put on our old sou-westers,
Likewise our oilskin frock,
And straightway to the capstan
And merrily spin away,
That's the cry in the middle of the night
As well as in the day,
When we get our fish on board
We have them all to gut,
We have all to
clean
And in the ice-locker put.
We gut them and we clean them,
And we
stow them safe as well,
We stow them just as nice
As an oyster in his
shell.
I take this to be a parody on the amusing sea song On Board of the
Kangaroo which starts "Once I was a waterman and lived at home at ease,
but now I am a mariner and plough the angry seas". I have also recorded a
version from a fisherman at Hastings in Sussex.
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