The Greasy Wheel

This song captures the brief glory of the men who manned the Fellows and Morton steam barges at the end of the last century. The boats ran non-stop from London to Birmingham. Their glory was brief because the steam power which gave them their ascendancy had already, in the form of the locomotive, made the canal system obsolete.

The origins of the song are unclear and may have come from more than one source. Charles Parker of the BBC claimed to have collected it in fragmentary form for use in a radio programme about life on the narrow-boats 'The Cry from the Cut' (information from the Ian Campbell recording). Part of the song being sung by a working boatman, Mr Arthur Johns of Braunston, can be heard on the 1962 radio programme 'Cry from the Cut' along with additional verses and arrangement by Ian Campbell. The transcription of the Ian Campbell recording is given above.

David Blagrove, similarly, collected fragments of the lyrics and the tune from an old boater in the bar of the Greyhound at Hawkesbury Junction on the Coventry Canal in the early 1960's and put it back together again filling in the blanks (information from Bru Peckett). David was kind enough to supply the lyrics which are given below.

Just what is the 'greasy wheel'? Whilst attempting to find out I came across an excellent web-site entitled 'The History of the Narrow Boat Steamer - So Far ...' run by Richard Thomas. For anyone with an interest in narrow boat steamers this site is a must. Fortuitously, Richard was able to contact David Blagrove who kindly provided the following information about the song.

"The Greasy Wheel" is certainly an old steam boaters' ditty. The tune is obviously borrowed from an older 19th Century song called "Jim the Carter's Lad", but the words have always struck me as being a genuine boatman’s ditty, composed by most probably more than one man. The name, which applied to the FMC steamers, but may have orginally been given to the GJCCC’s steamers, appears to derive from the prominent flywheel in the engine room of the steamers. The "greasy" epithet is also obvious to anyone who has ever taken a turn in a steamer’s engine hole; even though it was customary to keep everything spotlessly clean, oil and grease are inescapable, especially heavy steam oil for lubricating the cylinders. Tom Rolt though thought that it might have something to do with cargoes of tallow and soap that they once carried. Some steamer crews were also known as "Greasy Ockers", which may have been related to FM’s one-time base at Ocker Hill or, as Jack James once told me, when the butties were sent forward from Braunston to the top of Hatton behind a horse before the "candlestick" locks were installed, it was customary to grease their hocks against the mud of the poorly-maintained Oxford and Warwick Canals’ towpaths.

Anyway, the version that I have always known goes as follows :

If you wants to join the Braunston boats, etc (Second version above)

There was another verse part remembered for me by Henry Grantham, late of Buckby locks, which he always said referred to the 'flu epidemic of 1918-19. He added "You only ever saw Fellerses tied up fer ice or death!"

Come all you starchy steamboat men as wants a job a-flyin'
Step aboard old Enoch's boats, the poor old bugger's dyin'
Somes a-dyin' fer lack of food and some fer want o' sleep,
But what's a-killin' Enoch is the poor ole bugger's feet!

The things that seem to me to be authentic are the references to such things as cleaning up on the "ten mile" from Camp Hill to Knowle; shoving the way past horse boats; getting tangled in towlines and straps (easily done for a novice); not getting "farmed up" in fields and the steamer men's costume. I suspect the bit about "doing one's bit" dates from the 1914-18 war, when steamer men were in a reserved occupation, from 1917 at least.

David Blagrove (April 2012)

Recorded on :

Something to Sing About - The Ian Campbell Folk Group - Pye Records (1972)
Re-issued on CD by Wooded Hill Recordings HILLCD 21 (1997)