Alfred William "Bob" Roberts (1907–1982) was a British
folk singer
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...
,
songwriter
A songwriter is a musician who professionally composes musical compositions or writes lyrics for songs, or both. The writer of the music for a song can be called a composer, although this term tends to be used mainly in the classical music gen ...
,
storyteller, bargeman,
author
An author is the writer of a book, article, play, mostly written work. A broader definition of the word "author" states:
"''An author is "the person who originated or gave existence to anything" and whose authorship determines responsibility f ...
, and
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...
. He was the last captain of a British
commercial vessel
A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are us ...
operating under
sail
A sail is a tensile structure—which is made from fabric or other membrane materials—that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may ...
, and brought to an end a centuries-old tradition.
Life
Alfred William Roberts was born in the village of
Hampreston
Hampreston is a small village in the civil parish of Ferndown in East Dorset, southern England. Before 1972, the whole parish took the name of Hampreston, with its population rising from 1,860 in 1921 to 11,750 in 1971.
The village has a school, ...
,
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...
where his parents taught in the village school. Roberts's father, who was brought up in North Wales, ran the church choir as well as playing the
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
, church organ,
melodeon
Melodeon may refer to:
* Melodeon (accordion), a type of button accordion
*Melodeon (organ), a type of 19th-century reed organ
*Melodeon (Boston, Massachusetts), a concert hall in 19th-century Boston
* Melodeon Records, a U.S. record label in the ...
,
concertina
A concertina is a free-reed musical instrument, like the various accordions and the harmonica. It consists of expanding and contracting bellows, with buttons (or keys) usually on both ends, unlike accordion buttons, which are on the front.
The ...
and fiddle for village dances. These musical interests led
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams, (; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...
to visit him at the village.
Roberts attended Wimborne Grammar School on a choral scholarship. After leaving school at 17, he eventually became a journalist at the ''Orpington Gazette'', before moving to work as a sports reporter for the ''
Daily Mail
The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
'' on
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was na ...
. Robert found it difficult to settle at his job at the ''Mail'', and twice took off on long sea voyages. Finally he left the newspaper to work on a
Thames sailing barge
A Thames sailing barge is a type of commercial sailing boat once common on the River Thames in London. The flat-bottomed barges with a shallow draught and leeboards, were perfectly adapted to the Thames Estuary, with its shallow waters and narr ...
. Apart from a short stint as a sub-editor at the ''
East Anglian Daily Times
The ''East Anglian Daily Times'' is a British local newspaper for Suffolk and Essex, based in Ipswich.
History
The newspaper began publication on 13 October 1874, incorporating the ''Ipswich Express'', which had been published since 13 August ...
'' in the late forties, Roberts would work on eight barges over the next 35 years, initially as a mate and on his final five boats, as skipper. His other voyages at sea would take him to the West Indies, Ascension Island, West Africa and Brazil.
In 1940 Roberts married his wife, Amelia or ‘Toni’, whom he had first met in the late 1920s, and in 1949 they moved to
Pin Mill
A pin mill is a mill that comminutes materials by the action of pins that repeatedly move past each other. Much like a kitchen blender, it breaks up substances through repeated impact.
The mill is a type of vertical shaft impactor mill and consi ...
, on the
River Orwell
The River Orwell flows through the county of Suffolk in England from Ipswich to Felixstowe. Above Ipswich, the river is known as the River Gipping, but its name changes to the Orwell at Stoke Bridge, where the river becomes tidal. It broadens in ...
. And it was while working at East Anglian Times that F.T. Everard and Sons offered Roberts the captaincy of the
''Cambria'', the Thames sailing barge he was to make famous.
Working as a bargeman allowed Roberts to collect songs from bargemen and others he met along the East Anglian coast, which he added to his repertoire of his own songs. Working on barges also affected Roberts literary output, because even as a skipper his wages didn’t support his family, which included two daughters. So, he supplemented his income by writing books and articles, often while waiting for good seagoing conditions.
Roberts had a good selection of songs by the 1950s, when he met the folklorist
Peter Kennedy. Kennedy was making field recordings for the
English Folk Dance and Song Society
The English Folk Dance and Song Society (EFDSS, or pronounced 'EFF-diss') is an organisation that promotes English folk music and folk dance. EFDSS was formed in 1932 when two organisations merged: the Folk-Song Society and the English Folk Dan ...
and the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, and together they recorded some of Robert’s folk singing contacts for the BBC folk programme ''As I Roved Out'' and the folk music radio programme ''Song Hunter'', produced by a young
, as well as being recorded by the BBC Folk Music and Dialect Recording Scheme that was led by Kennedy.
From the 1950s onwards, Roberts appeared in folk clubs and festivals. He gained the reputation as a great story teller, distinctive singer and charismatic personality. In 1966, Roberts read five seafaring stories on the BBC children's programme
.