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Transports of DelightDateline: 16th November, 2004Four decades after its spectacular revival in the 1960s, folk music is still very much a minority interest with a small but passionately devoted fan base. Largely ignored by the mainstream media and lacking the "publicity power" of the big record labels, some of the finest singers and instrumentalists in Britain are known only to those who patronise folk festivals and their local folk clubs. It was at the Black Swan Folk Club in York that I first heard the song "I Once Lived in Service", the tale of a servant girl in 18th century Norfolk who steals her employer's silver spoons and becomes one of the first convicts to be transported to Australia. Although it sounds for all the world like an authentic folk song it comes from Peter Bellamy's 1977 ballad opera The Transports. Being a comparative newcomer to the folk scene I hadn't heard of the work before, and much to my disappointment it was not available on CD. However, earlier this year Free Reed Music reissued The Transports in a lavishly produced box set - the original recording, a second CD of the songs featuring some of the top folk artists of today, and a 130 page book. It didn't take me long to realise that The Transports is a little masterpiece of English music theatre. I use the word "little" because it has only ten roles, limited opportunities for a chorus and lasts for about one hour and fifteen minutes (although in stage productions the use of dance, mime and projected images must have extended the running time). The true story on which it is based is also very simple - Henry Cabell and Susannah meet in Norwich Gaol after committing petty crimes for which they narrowly escaped the gallows, Susannah gives birth to Henry's baby, she is sentenced to be transported to Australia (the ship's captain orders the baby to be abandoned at the dockside) and Henry is left to rot in prison. Fortunately the kind-hearted prison officer who escorts Susannah to Plymouth succeeds in persuading government minister Lord Sydney to allow Henry and the baby to accompany her to Botany Bay. The opera ends with the weddings of Henry, Susannah and other convict couples, the first to take place in England's new colony. Reduced to the bare bones of its plot and despite its happy ending, The Transports may sound more than a little depressing. Yet Bellamy's brilliant pastiche folk songs run the gamut of emotion from The Black and Bitter Night, Henry's lament on his separation from Susannah, to the Coach Driver's jaunty The Plymouth Mail, via Susannah's wry observations on the comparative merits of domestic service and imprisonment - I Once Lived in Service. In the beautiful The Leaves in the Woodland Henry's mother contemplates suicide after her husband is executed for burglary, and in Roll Down Bellamy turns his hand to a rollicking sea shanty (so convincingly "traditional" it has frequently been mistaken for the real thing). The Green Fields of England is a marvellous four-part harmony number for the convicts, ending with the words "So farewell to our judges so kind and forgiving/Farewell to your prisons and cells/For although we must leave all that makes life worth living/We're leaving you bastards as well…" All in all there are ten songs and not a dud amongst them, a far cry from the motley collection of mediocre tunes and inane lyrics that characterize so many contemporary musicals. The Transports LP was released in 1977 and widely acclaimed as a folk classic. The first live performance of The Transports took place in 1978 at Norwich Castle, and it has subsequently been performed at venues as diverse as Kempton Park Race Course, York University and the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank. Amateur groups, folk clubs and schools have all produced fully staged or concert versions of the work. In 1992 a memorable production was staged at the Whitby Folk Festival, with up and coming star Eliza Carthy as Susannah (the role originally created for her mother, folk legend Norma Waterson), but sadly Peter Bellamy did not live to see it.
The second disc in The Transports set ends with a brief live recording of Bellamy singing Roll Down and joking with the audience at the end of his last American tour; a month later, in September 1991, he killed himself at the age of 47. One can only hope that Free Reed's reissue of The Transports will introduce this quintessentially English masterpiece to a new generation of performers and producers. You can buy The Transports - Silver Edition from our bookstore for £28.99
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