Good Order! Ladies and Gentleman Please, traditional singing and music from the Eel's Foot, Eastbridge, Suffolk recorded in the 1930s & 40s.
“Folksong is quaint now. Folksong is arty. But once this was not so. Once the farm labourers and the weavers, the road-menders and tinsmiths who made up these songs two hundred, three hundred years ago, were the fellows who sang them. And to this day there are still places where the songs and style of the old traditional singers are still kept alive by the people themselves.
“The Eel’s Foot is such a place. The Eel’s Foot is in Eastbridge. Eastbridge is in Suffolk. The weather is bleak, but the beer is good. On Saturday nights in the Eel’s Foot, the little bar-room is too crowded to play darts. The locals sit formally round two tables and sing. They sing in turn, as they are called upon by the chairman. They sing songs of a forgotten time—songs about highwaymen and sailing ships, about deserted soldiers and servant girls betrayed.”
From Picture Post Magazine, 14 December 1940