Emily Feldberg's Music - Canary Girls

CANARY GIRLS a setting from
Fragments: Voices from the First World War

DETAILS AND TEXTS.

Canary Girls (Munitions Workers):
Composer's note: Canary Girls is a bright, jaunty romp with a serious middle section, which reflects the munitions workers' defiance in the face of their dangerous work¹⁰ and the reality of the devastating explosions (such as that at Silvertown in West Ham) that occurred in the factories. Many of these explosions were kept secret at the time and for many years after the war. The text for the Silvertown section is taken mainly from eye-witness accounts of the explosion.¹¹ The main text is a poem by munitions worker and war poet Madeline Ida Bedford, first published in the farewell souvenir magazine of HM Munitions Factory in Gretna. (I have changed the order of the verses slightly.) The Canary Girls were women munitions workers, so-called because the sulphur mix put into the shells made the workers' skins go yellow. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle called this mix the 'Devil's Porridge' when reporting on the Gretna munitions factory in 1917.

Texts:

Canary Girls
Earning high wages? Yus, Five quid a week. ^[10]
A woman, too, mind you, I calls it dim sweet.
Ye'are asking some questions -
but bless yer, here goes:
I spends the whole racket on good times and clothes.

I'm having life's good times, see 'ere, it's like this
The 'oof' come o' danger, a touch and go bizz
We're all here today mate, tomorrow perhaps dead
If Fate tumbles on us and blows up our shed.

Me saving? Elijah! Yer do think I'm mad.
I'm acting the lady, but - I ain't living bad.

Earning high wages? Yus, Five quid a week.
A woman, too, mind you, I calls it dim sweet.
Ye'are asking some questions -
but bless yer, here goes:
I spends the whole racket on good times and clothes.

Afraid! Are yer kidding? With money to spend!
Years back I wore tatters, now silk stockings, mi friend!
I've bracelets and jewellery, rings envied by friends;
A sergeant to swank with and something to lend.

Oh, Silvertown, Oh, Silvertown ^[11]
The place blew up, there were scores of dead
One great roar and flash!
Fountains of flame spread like a rose
Fiery rose, hundreds dead;
What a high price to pay.

Afraid! Are yer kidding? With money to spend!
Years back I wore tatters, now silk stockings, mi friend!

I drive out in taxis, do theatres in style.
And this is mi verdict - it is jolly worthwhile.
Worthwhile, for tomorrow if I'm blown to the sky
I'll have repaid mi wages in death - and pass by.

REFERENCES:

¹⁰ Munitions Wages by Madeline Ida Bedford (1885-1956) from The Young Captain, and other poems: Fragments of War and Love (1917) published by Erskine Macdonald. Retrieved from projects.oucs.ox.ac.uk/jtap/tutorials/intro/women/.
¹¹ Extracts from an anonymous account in a leaflet published to raise funds for a church destroyed in the Silvertown explosion on 19^th January 1917. Quoted in A century on: the mysterious cause and tragic legacy of London's biggest explosion by Toby Butler, published online in The Conversation. theconversation.com/a-century-on-the-mysterious-cause-andtragic- legacy-of-londons-biggest-explosion-71353.

CANARY GIRLS a setting from Fragments: Voices from the First World War

CANARY GIRLS a setting from
Fragments: Voices from the First World War