Long A-Growing- Mary Ann Haynes (Sus) 1974 Yates
[The title was probably assigned by a collector, the title's text is not found in her song. From Sussex Harvest a Topic anthology, 1998. Obviously this is much older.
R. Matteson 2016]
Notes from Ewan MacColl & Peggy Seeger, Travellers' Songs from England and Scotland, 1977, p.15
One of the first Gypsy singers that I met was Mary Ann Haynes. I had been told that her son, Ted, was a singer and I drove down to Sussex one Sunday afternoon, looking for his trailer. Eventually, I found Ted and his trailer in a field. He was busy and directed me to his mother, who 'knew all the old songs'. Mary lived in High Street, Brighton, where, according to Ted, she was known to 'everybody'. High Street turned out to be a narrow street off the sea-front and was full of large tower blocks. I started knocking on doors, only to be told that nobody knew a Mrs Haynes. I found that when I mentioned that she was a Gypsy doors were closed very quickly in my face. I began to wonder if I would ever find Mary, and was about to give up, when a lady said that there were no Gypsies in the area, only 'an Italian looking lady'. This was, of course, Mary. When I arrived she was sleeping off a lunchtime session in the pub, but, once roused, she set about making a cup of tea and, having said that I knew her son (sort of), she began to sing as soon as I mentioned songs. Mary had been born in 1905, in a Faversham waggon parked behind The Coach and Horses in Portsmouth, Hampshire. Her father, Richard Milest, was a horse-dealer whose family would accompany him across England during the summer as he made his way from fair to fair. "We used to go to the Vinegar & Pepper Fair at Bristol, then to Chichester, Lewes, Canterbury and Oxford, then up to Appleby and back down to Yalding." Mary's husband died suddenly, leaving her with a large family, and, having settled in Brighton, she worked as a flower-seller, earning enough to support her family. Mary died in 1977.
Liner notes: Mary Ann Haynes of Brighton, Sussex, sang Long A-Growing on July 17, 1974 to Mike Yates. This recording was included a year later on the Topic anthology of traditional songs from Sussex, Sussex Harvest, in 1998 on the Topic anthology Tonight I'll Make You My Bride (The Voice of the People Series Volume 6), and in 2003 on the Musical Traditions anthology of gypsy songs and music from South-east England, Here's Luck to a Man. Marry Ann Haynes' tracks 2, 10, 13 were also included on the Voice of the People series.
One of the ballads that Professor Child failed to include in his major work. A L Lloyd, and others, have suggested a connection between the song and the marriage in 1631 of the juvenile Lord of Craigton to a girl some years his senior. But such marriages, often formed to consolidate family alliances, were not uncommon. For example, Prince Arthur, the first-born son of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York died aged 15, shortly after marrying Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The song has proven highly popular with singers and versions, similar to that sung by Mary, have turned up all over the place.
Other recordings: Tom Lenihan (County Clare) - cassette accompanying The Mount Callan Garland by Tom Munnelly (Dublin, 1994); George Dunn (Staffordshire) - Musical Traditions MTCD317-8; Walter Pardon (Norfolk) - Topic TSCD514; Harry Cox (Norfolk) - Rounder 1839; Lizzy Higgins (Aberdeen) - Topic TSCD667; Fred Jordan (Shropshire) - Topic TSCD653; Mary Townsley (Dundee) - Smithsonian-Folkways SFW CD 40091; Joe Heaney Connemara) - Topic TSCD518D.
Long a-Growing: Sung by Mary Ann Haynes, Brighton, 1974, collected Mike Yates.
Oh, the trees they did grow high
And the leaves they did grow green.
There's years have gone and past, my love,
What you and I have seen.
Many a cold and winter's night
You and I have laid alone.
But our bonny boy is young And he's growing.
'Oh, father, dearest father,
Now to me much harm you have done.
You have married me to a young youth;
You knew he were too young.'
'Oh, daughter, dearest daughter,
If you'll only wait for a while,
I will send him to a college while he's growing.'
'I will send him to a college, say,
For one year or two,
And perhaps all in the time, my love,
He may then be for you.
For, a bunch of blue ribbons
We'll tie around his bonny waist.
That will let the ladies know that he's married.'
Oh, I looked over the college wall
And there I see them all.
Five and twenty gentlemen
Was playing bat and ball.
Oh, I looked round to him,
He was the smallest one of all.
So I thought he was a long time a-growing.
I'm going to make my love a stroud [shroud]
Of the best of Holland's brown,
And all the time I'm making it
The tears they will come down.
Saying, 'Once I had a sweetheart
And now I ain't a-got none.'
But his bonny boy is young and he's growing.
At the age of twenty he was a married man.
At the age of twenty-one
The grass grew over his tombstone.
At the age of twenty-one now
The grass grows over his tombstone.
So that cruel death had put an end to his growing.