When I landed at Lynn in the spring of 1816 and saw my father's old farmhand Jack in the Three Crowns, my heart sang. "It's a sight for sore eyes to see you alive, Jack," I said. "How long has it been since you ran away from the constables?" "I was at Trafalgar with Nelson in '05. And wounded in the action off Toulon in '13." Now I noticed the peg leg with a jolt. "Was you indeed? And I'm come from Waterloo last June with the Duke of Wellington." "And now we gets our reward, eh? All the nice girls loves a hero." "There was only ever one girl for me Jack." "Still the same old John Morris!" He clapped me on the back. "Well, she'll love you now, all right, with the laurels of Waterloo not yet cool on your brow. That's even worth going back with you to Littleport to see." "You've not been back?" "Too busy defending these silver shores, John. But I'm done with the sea now. Time to settle down." We drank away my boat fare to Littleport and set off in the evening on foot instead, Jack swinging ahead faster than me. The Brunswick Hussars glared at us from the Gates when we waved. "I was at Waterloo!" I yelled, "show shome reshpect!" "It's me they're glaring at," whispered Jack. "They recognise me from the sailors' wages riot here in '14." I frowned. "I thought the country loved the navy now." "Not enough to pay us properly. I was in Lynn gaol for 4 months until my old shipmates bust me out." I was angry. But I brightened up. "All that's changed now. The war's over!" "Aye!" It was raining, as it had all that spring, and the chill lanes were sodden as Culloden. But, as a boy, no matter how hard the toil, Jack could always sing like a robin and the years at sea had given his voice a rich swell. The birds weren't singing. But we were. We were conquering English heroes. Mosquitoes bit him half to death. Heave away, Heave away. 'I'll die a hero's life instead' Heave away, Horatio's boys, heave away Heave away and make a Victory noise from Burnham to Trafalgar. Off Corsica, his eye foresworn 'I got a little hurt this morn'. (etc) Off Cape St Vincent breaking ranks Heave away, heave away He won the day and England's thanks Tell my wife I'm killed we say. Heave away, Horatio's boys, heave away Heave away and make a Victory noise from Burnham to Trafalgar. His king's right hand at Santa Cruz A night to win and arm to lose (etc) A peerage or Westminster crypt, He sinks the French from here to Egypt (etc) "You'll discontinue!" flagged his Admiral Heave away, heave away My blind eye does not see your signal. Tell my wife I'm killed we say. Heave away, Horatio's boys, heave away Heave away and make a Victory noise from Burnham to Trafalgar. Redoubtable sharp shooters spy him. 'They've done for me at last I'm dying'

"We slept under a hedge and slogged south through floods. The nearer we got to Littleport, the worse it got. "This lake was fields when I left in '05" frowned Jack. "Aye, the sea crept back about then. We all said it was you. But it was worse when the sun dried it out," I retched, remembering the stench. "It spread the bog fevers. Where is the sun by the way? I haven't seen it all year. It's like the Ice Age." Jack shook his head and wished he hadn't because it ached with last night's ale. "God's angry, John. And it's not just here. A sailor's tale says the world's ending - on account of an Indonesian volcano called Mount Tambora blowing its top last April. The dust clouds blocked out the sun all the way to America, killed the harvest, gave us the worst farming year since Noah. Flood tides, famine, crop failure. They're prophesying a year without a summer, orange snow in July… (Music under this?) "The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went - and came, and brought no day, And men forgot their passions in the dread Of this their desolation; and all hearts Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light." Still, it's not all bad news," he grinned, "Here's a sunrise for someone on the riverbank." I looked up and there she was. Mary Martin. (Jack plays two lines from Blue Cockade. Then, over it- Now before I'd gone for a soldier, I'd lived in with Farmer Martin, the leading landowner and principal farmer of Littleport, and I'd lived well. Meat and beer every day and a fatherly eye kept on me too. In harvest week, (swig strong beer every time it's mentioned) I had a pint of strong beer, bread and cheese at 6; a breakfast of cold meat and beer at eight; a pint of strong beer and bread and cheese at 11; roast beef or mutton and plum pudding for dinner; a pint of strong beer and bread and cheese at 4; hot hash or mutton pies at 7. And on Saturdays, on top of all that, a good seed cake covered in sugar. With a quart of strong beer poured over it. I loved it. And I loved his daughter, Mary. (Jack plays Blue Cockade. After a line, speak over it) Sharing the same table at breakfast, waving her goodbye as I went off to the fields and she went in to milk the cows... It was her I kissed goodbye when I left for the army, her brother having started playing high and mighty with me at home, about the time he started following the hounds instead of the plough.(Jack stops playing) During the war years, because of the high price of corn, Farmer Martin got airs. He started serving port and Madeira to his visitors, about the time labourers who didn't live in were going short of good ale. And he wanted me out. He couldn't keep me on so little as he gave me in wages. But there's things that cannot be bought with money. Like loyalty. Live-in labourers didn't riot - they defended their masters against riot. Hooray Henry Martin brought what happened in himself. During the war years, the classes grew apart. It suited the up and coming farmers well to have the labourer completely reliant on a weekly wage, working round the clock without any distractions like a garden of his own, and out of his employer's house. Out of sight out of mind. But it was just the worst time to do that to us - with the price of corn high, and us least able to feed ourselves. And on top of that, the enclosures were taking in common land and father had to find money to pay for fences for our smallholding. (Jack plays jaunty version of Blue Cockade under the following section. Speak over it.) When I decided to go for a soldier to help keep the family farm going, Mary promised to wait for me. "As long as you haven't lost anything," she teased. "I won't marry a sweetheart with one arm or one eye, however heroic Nelson's made it." Now when you've been through death, hell and high water without sight of your first love, and come back in one piece to find the rosebud grown into a lovely rose, it is enough to stop your heart. I had dreamed of her the night before Waterloo and here the dream was, as real as sunrise is red. Looking down at me from her father's new carriage with a parasol over her head against the rain. The goddess spoke. "John Morris?" I stepped up to kiss her… ( Jack continues to play solo…) She withdrew and dangled a gloved hand. I took it. "Chapped hands from milking Mary?" "God help us, none of the farmers lets his daughters milk like a common maid on parish relief these days John! Gloves and hand cosmetics is quite de rigeur. My hands must look delicate for when I plays the harpsichord. " (Jack plays bad harpsichord) (build the row) "Harpsichords and French!" I gasp, anxious to see beneath the glove to her ring finger. "Have you married the squire?!" She blushed. "I needs no squire to make me a lady! Farmers is the lords of the country now. And men like my father have thrown Government Property Inspectors through windows for trying to snatch back his hard-earned profits now the war is over." "Then maybe men like me will follow our master's example," I said. "I put Napoleon back in his box to save the farms of England. For you. For God's sake, will you not welcome me home?" "I cannot throw myself away on a labouring family who have nothing more than the hovel they live in." "We're not labourers - we're small farmers." "Your father's smallholding is gone, John. He sold up when they enclosed the common. He couldn't afford the fences and with the common gone has no pasture either. He's building my father's fences, and his oxen are father's now too." "Enclosing his own farm for your father! But that's like you losing your hanky and then being made to embroider another lady's initials on it!" "I am sorry for you, John, but it is the way of the world now. I must marry a farmer - with land; not a soldier of poor family, discharged with nothing." " (Jack sings a complete verse of Blue Cockade)

"My mother's face lit up as I came down our path. Not the old elegant cottage I remembered - that was gone to Henry Martin along with the land - this was the mud hovel common on newly expanded 'estates' of get-war-rich-quick farmers like Martin's, dark and badly ventilated. Farmer Martin had all the arrogance of established landowners like Sir Thomas Coke of Holkham and none of his noblesse oblige. But a mother is always your mother, the world over. It was a warmer greeting than Mary's at any rate. She was in the kitchen garden, digging up white nettles and comfrey. To eat. And parched beans to be ground for coffee. We used to have three fields the whole Morris family could labour in for two days a week. Most labourers had at least one. And even paupers had the common. Now everyone who worked at all worked for farmers like Henry Martin. Our parlour was like the one the poet George Crabbe described. (Jack plays a tune behind this) "Such is that room which one rude beam divides, And naked rafters form the sloping sides; Where the vile bonds that bind the thatch are seen, And lath and mud are all that lie between; Save one dull pane, that, coarsely patch'd, gives way To the rude tempest, yet excludes the day. "Father's very late home tonight?" "He's collecting the benefit that tops up his wages." "We're on the Parish?" I was horrified. "No. He works all week but Farmer Martin doesn't pay the full wage. It's supposed to stop people starving but all it means is that Martin gets a full week's work for three quarters of the wage and Philip has to claim the difference." "Mary told me you’d sold the farm - and now this. Why didn't you warn me?" "You were so overjoyed in your letters after Waterloo we didn't want to. It could be worse. Farmers are laying men like Philip off and hiring cheaper ones to make sure the rates pay instead of them. Some large families on benefits don't bother to work, or do half a week. The Easeys get 6s6d for 4 children now Martin's sacked him. We all end up with the same pittance so what's the point? they say, "there's too many hands for too little work now." But you know your father. Philip says it demoralises a man to live on charity. Put it brave face on it, please, when he comes in. Your return means such a lot to him and he broke his back trying to save the farm to leave you. I've kept back a mouthful of salt pork and a sheep's pluck against your return. The rest of us can make do very well with bread." "Just bread?" "Wheat bread. Lots of Littleport families can only afford that rancid oatmeal, the millers are charging such a price for flour." It was unseasonably cold in the kitchen. "I'll go and get some wood for the fire," I said. "And I'll bag us a rabbit or a deer while I'm at it." I held up the firearm I'd smuggled home from Waterloo. "A Frenchie tried to kill me with this. And God help me, I shot him with it, mother, defending my country. I'm damned if my family will go without meat at my homecoming." Mother put her hand on my arm anxiously. "Game belongs to the landowner these days son. There's no common to cut wood or shoot hare anymore, either. Only these new man traps and spring guns. I haven't waited for you to come home to lose you to the hulk ships - or worse." (look at rope) "The scaffold? - for a bit of innocent poaching? What's happened to the freeborn England I fought for?" Jack sings first two verses of the 'Cambridgeshire' poacher's song. John joins the chorus. Father answered my question - about the freeborn England I'd fought for - when he came in, weary from his long walk to the parish office. "The war ate the land son - all the labourer's time, and his common land too - Now the poor's paying for the post-war depression, while the farmers sit pretty on their war gains. And in Farmer Martin's case get made parish overseer of the Littleport poor, too, and bitterly hated by all for his condescension." I was cold with fury - why should Dad beg the supplement Martin owed him anyway, making a work-weary man walk to the parish office for the privilege while this upstart put his fancy-shod feet up and tippled his Madeira? Father wolfed down the nettle broth and white bread my mother had prepared and sighed. " It's always those who can least afford it that has to pay. It's what Christ meant when he said the poor will always be with you." "So Parson Vachel's always telling us," said mother, as she stirred the thin pot. "Before he goes home from the pulpit to the palace our tithes pay for!" "And that's the Philosopher talking," scowled an exhausted Dad from his chair. "The Philosopher?" I asked. Like William Cobbett the Radical, also a small farmer's son, I had taught myself to read while I was in the army, which was miracle enough. But I never expected Philosophy from my mother! "William Beamis, the cobbler. They always call cobblers 'philosophers.' Your mother listens to his freethinking these days instead of Parson Vachel." "Mr Beamis is the better Christian," insisted Mother. "Parson Vachell has less Christian charity in him than King Herod." "Which is why magistrates are chosen from the ranks of the clergy!" snapped my brother Matthew. He had grown from a happy boy into a sardonic man during my three years away. "Have I got to share my room with John as well as Matthew and Mark now?" whined my youngest brother Luke. "And what work can soldier John do?" "I'll work on the flailing if there's no other work." " You won't. Martin's 'labour-saving' threshing machine has seen to that." "It's good to see you, too, Matthew," I said. "Oh and please don't thank me for saving your country. "I didn't!" "Exactly!" "We're all heartily glad to see you John," frowned my father at Matthew, " but it's true, half the country's out of work now the war boom's gone and you and Jack and half a million demobbed soldiers and sailors without a means of livelihood isn't going to help." * (see below) Alice, the eldest of my three sisters coughed and the cough turned into a choke. She had caught some ague last so-called 'harvest' scavenging in the dried mud the last time the middle field was above water. Mother clucked over her and put her to bed. Then Little Mark started crying. "Alice was better off spinning hemp like she did as a toddler," said Matthew. Hemp was the one thing a cottager could rely on when all else failed. Always in demand, no ups and down like wool, always more work than hands. "We grew loads of it after we lost the smallholding, " said mother. "Now the only poor cottager making any money out of it is Mark Benton, and even he hardly keeps body and soul together." "There's only one use for hemp in these parts these days," said Matthew." (both look at rope. Jack reprises the poaching music. John speaks over it…) "We should leave this godforsaken fen and move to one of the big new mill towns." "It's our home," said Father. "And anyway we can't. The Settlement Laws keep us here in our home parish." "To starve - or barely survive. If the Law's such an ass," said Matthew, "maybe we should break it. And not just the Settlement Laws either" He had a dangerous look in his eye. "These new Game Laws that turn the woods into a rich man's playground - fox hunting, pheasant shooting, philandering - while the poor live on (f-) nettle broth!" He glared at my army coat. "We usually only see redcoats in the fens when some poor frozen labourer's being arrested." Mark and my sisters were all crying now, upset by their sister's hacking cough, by the cold and the hunger and the constant bickering. "William Beamis wants a thinking lad for his shoemaking business," said mother. "I'll go and see him tomorrow," I said. "He'll be too freethinking for soldier John!" snapped Matthew. "Enough politics at the supper table," sighed Father wearily. "Keep it for next month's Benefit Club." "Politics - at the Benefit Club! That's a turnabout since I left." "Someone's got to fight for the English labourer. We can't all strut around Paris in a redcoat like the Jack of Hearts!" "Please, " cried mother. "This is supposed to be John's homecoming!" That night, I asked Matthew about the 'politics' at the Benefit club. He answered grumpily, as grumpy with me as with our sleeping quarters. The new bedroom he shared with two brothers - and now also grudgingly with the family's war hero - made the barracks I'd left seem like a palace. "We can't meet legally so we call it a Benefit Club. The men of Southerey are coming over and then a whole gang of us is going poaching in the parson's woods." "The parson?" "Aye, we daren't venture into Martin's . His new girn traps are took thick underfoot. Well, are you with us, soldier boy?" "Does The Parson SHOOT in the woods?" I quipped. He looked at me a moment without understanding. "SHOOT in the woods?" …. and then he started laughing. And then we all laughed. Mother called up the stairs to know what the laughter was about. For the first time that day I felt at home. * The following section was added at the point indicated to the show after this live performance was recorded- John's redcoats fought the wrong war," insisted Matthew. "He should have taken on the tyrants here at home like they did in the English Civil War." "Mother's obviously not the only one listening to Cobblers!" "Not Cobblers. Your King-and-country-comrade-in-arms Sailor Jack singing about a redcoat Leveller called Freeborn John in the Globe last night. He definitely wasn't describing you, brother John!" The bloodiest war in our history And one in four of us died For a castled king on a stagnant throne In a revolutionary tide. ‘I spilt my blood so I need a voice!’ Cries Freeborn John at Putney, ‘Who dies for England is England’s king, We are no grandee’s army. ‘The poorest man in England has The right to live as the greatest, Our God’s the All in all, our king’s The Christ in every breast.’ The bloodiest war in our history And one in four of us died For a castled king on a stagnant throne In a revolutionary tide. We’re the voice of the Freeborn Englishman That was raised at Magna Carta, The Dissenting flag of the Good Old Cause, The common or garden martyr. I rose with Tyler, Straw and Ball When peasants shook the kingdom, I was sold down that river of blood by a king Who hawked the soul of England. We need no manor house and land To fix our permanent interest, We fight for England, our rights and ourselves: No mercenary business. The bloodiest war in our history And one in four of us died For a castled king on a stagnant throne In a revolutionary tide. I will rise at Kett’s Hill and Tolpuddle, I will fall at Peterloo, March to Chartist hell and a Newport hotel To win this Britain for you, Die a million deaths in two world wars Though the portion’s not so many As died for Charles, that Man of Blood, And in our redcoat Army. A new model England truly advanced, Through rank and royal sin In a cavalry charge to a Future Now Whose ‘God Not Man Is King’. The bloodiest war in our history And one in four of us died For a castled king on a stagnant throne In a revolutionary tide - "Oh Matthew, that's just Jack getting drunk and singing a folk song. Folksongs don't mean anything-!" Hear the song here- http://garethcalway.blogspot.co.uk/p/doin-different.html "The Ballad of Freeborn John" (Calway-Wall, 2017) Lyric published in 'Doin different' (Poppyland 2015) © Gareth Calway 2016.

(Jack) When me and my companions was sitting in our pub 'Twas named the poor man's benefit but twas a poacher's club They have the fox and hounds and guns to chase us from the shrub (both) But we've the legs to run away and bring us home some grub But we've the legs to run away and bring us home some grub! (Jack) Man cannot live by bread alone Christ said we don't deny it. He cannot live without it though let Parson Vachel try it Or find a loaf that feeds a multitude who cannot buy it. (both) We'd rather earn our daily bread but if we can't we'll riot. We'd rather earn our daily bread but if we can't we'll riot! The Littleport Agricultural Labourers' Benefit Club - members only - between 50 and 60 of us, gathered at the Globe in the usual way that Wednesday, 22 May. On club night each member paid in his shilling and had a quart of beer. As Matthew predicted, the talk was of the iniquity of the rich with pub landlord Robert Johnston egging us on, taking the part of the poor he depended on. "The men of Southery and Denver have shown the way to stick it to the magistrates, lads." "And in Bury." There was an edge in the air, a feeling that more than talk and beer would flow that night. "Then let us have blood too!" cried Matthew. "What are we waiting for?" "For the men of Denver and Southery to join us," explained my father. The drinking went on until money and patience ran out. "Well as the Denver men have not come, we will have a fray for ourselves!" A labourer I didn't know named Cornwall tried - and failed - to get a sound out of the blacksmith's drill spout. He tried - and failed - to get one out of the the baker's hot roll horn. Finally, he tried - and succeeded - in getting one from the horn Burgess the lighterman blew when taking pleasure parties up the river to Downham. Hurrah! He blew it here, (blow) he blew it there (blow), he blew it all over the village. (blow blow blow) And hundreds flocked to the call. Then, with a shower of stones through Mingey's shop window, and a hurling down of reed stacks, pickle pots and shop-goods, the riot began. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?" shouted a voice like thunder, a voice used to obedience. Parson John Vachell. He whipped off his high hat, took out the magistrate's copy of the Riot Act he kept there, and pronounced it over us like the word of God. A magistrate had to be a clergyman in those days. A pity they didn't have to a Christian as well. "Go home!" we yelled. Or words to that effect. The Ballad of Bread or Blood (1816) It was ‘the year without a summer’, The price of bread was sky-high; The Poor Law kept our wages low; The farmers watched us die. The Iron Duke called us heroes, The ‘Victors of Waterloo’, We came home to our starving children With no work for victors to do. ‘8 shillings, Sir, to work all week, Two pounds of bread for to buy, To till the England we fought to save, To be maimed for, to kill for, to die.’ ‘What do you want?’ they ask us, The Judges and Kings of the age. ‘Our children are starving – to feed them! Give us a living wage! The land too dear for us to fence, We sold to the enclosers; Now we fence-ditch-hedge it for the squire As landless labourers. Aye, enclosure robs the common rights We had, it ploughs the grass Whereon we fed the cow we’ve lost, The horse, the pig, the ass. I joined the Army then to feed My bleak-eyed family But the war just parted rich from poor, Made wealth my enemy. ‘What do you want?’ they ask us, The Judges and Kings of the age. ‘Our children are starving – to feed them! Give us a living wage! “Your riot is for riot’s sake!” Those JPs say, their station To balance farmers, millers, shops With waged men, as a nation. On the old world of noblesse oblige ‘All help themselves’ is carved They to our rights, we to their wealth, He hangs as well who starves! Machines steal my work, agues my house, High prices my wages low, From vicious Fenland damp and floods, To pub and to riot we go! ‘What do you want?’ they ask us, The Judges and Kings of the age. ‘Our children are starving – to feed them! Give us a living wage! ©Gareth Calway 2015, published in 'Doing Different.' (Poppyland, 2015) http://garethcalway.blogspot.co.uk/p/doin-different.html

Vachell didn't know it then but he'd preached his last sermon in Littleport. No local parishioner or labourer would ever listen to him again. We told him to come with us to parley with the farmers in the churchyard. Farmer Henry Martin, their leader, informed us our present gathering was illegal under the Combination Acts of 1799 and 1800 and cobbler-Philosopher William Beamis told him so was his combination of farmers then, unless there be "one law for the rich and another for the poor." (Or, as the Fightin' Parson and magistrate Reverend Sir Henry Bate Dudley would put it later "The Law is not made for a Righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient.") William Beamis indicated the stretches of drained farmland. "You local upstarts - and the great absentee landowners you would be if you could and act like you are - are only rich because of these poor labourers who grow your crops." Martin promised us "2s a day wages and flour at 2s6d a stone, exactly what was promised to the Southerey people." He then excused himself, saying he had road toll business in Downham. After that, there was no stopping the mob. Every farmer and shopkeeper in Littleport got a visit, a smashed up house and a demand for money. At Dewey's - he was a retired farmer - a wholesale house clearance went on. (keep pace up through the clauses) Sheets, tablecoths, stockings, a watch, gowns, a hundred guineas - which was never recovered - and a cleaver, which Thomas South would use to devastating effect for the rest of the evening, mainly on property. (pause) I yelled above the bedlam that this drunken riot was likely to get us all hanged!! William Beamis (with some difficulty) stopped them assaulting Henry Luddington the magistrate in his home - one of the few spared. It saved Luddington a beating but it was the death of Beamis, fixing him in that one-eyed jury of silly Ely burghers as a ring-leader. Not all the ring-led agreed. "We need John Dennis," growled my father. "He'd control this mob better than the Philosopher can." "Dennis is grieving for the son he lost last week," said Matthew. "Leave him be." Young South was raving. "My family's starving on the parish and I can't get work and there's shops full of beef and mutton and beautiful wheat loaves only the likes of the farmers can afford." A blood curling yell went up. "We want Henry Martin's blood! we want Henry Martin's blood!" (audience participation) He lived in a great house with his grandmother Rebecca Waddelow, an unpopular shopkeeper. She sent her servant 'Little' Sallis to answer the door. Sallis offered us £5 to go away. My father looked at in wonder "That's 100 days wages!" Joseph Easey snarled. "No. We will have Martin!" "He's not here," said Sallis. The mob smashed its way into the house. Thomas South, unable to find Henry Martin, whom he worked for and hated, swung his cleaver at William Martin, his brother, also a farmer. And missed. Aiming at (and missing) the wrong target. And there you have the differerence between a disciplined army and a drunken mob. The frustrated South then led the crowd in chopping up every piece of furniture in the house of Hooray Henry's grandmother and cleared the shop of food and clothing worth £50. An unimaginable fortune to a labourer - and the price of his life later. Many others, like William Gotobed and George Crow, also had personal scores to settle with Martin. George Crow stole £6 - which he too would later pay for with his life. Farmer Martin saw to that. "We want Henry Martin's blood! we want Henry Martin's blood!" (x4) Henry Martin himself now drew up in a chaise, driven by Mr Evans, clerk to the magistrates at Ely. Beamis stepped forward. "Good evening, citoyens. Welcome to the citizens' republic of Littleport. Your money please." He relieved Evans of a purse full of 14 shillings. And peered at a vaguely familiar shadow within. "Who's that with you? It's not Henry Martin is it?" "Er no…" "We have some large accounts to settle with Henry Martin-" "Come on lads!" interrupted Isaac Harley. "Time to settle scores with a certain parson who reads us the riot act when we try to feed our families! Get Vachell! Get Vachell!" "Beer or blood! Beer or blood!" shouted South. The mob joined in: (audience participation) BEER OR BLOOD !!!! BEER OR BLOOD!!!!! (x4) "The last thing we need now is more beer, dad" I said. "We need a strategy." We invaded the Vicarage. £2 and, to my surprise, a barrel of beer was handed over. What was Vachell, Littleport's moral guardian, doing, pouring beer upon troubled waters like that? Isaac Harley playfully put a gun he'd stolen to Vachell's temple. "More money -or your life!" He paid for this game later, with his life. Our Christian pastor saw to that. In a rather loose interpretation of "And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer him the other, "Vachell pulled out an expensive pistol of his own. Furious at this, the mob knocked him aside, forcing its way into his house, looting it and smashing it all to pieces. Never mind that, I shouted, "Vachell's escaping! " "Let him go," advised my father, "and his wife and daughter. He's preached meekness to empty bellies and stood in pitiless judgement over workless labourers and never raised to finger to help the poor. This crowd will kill him." "But he's a magistrate, dad. He'll warn Ely and they'll get troops sent from Bury!" Harley's eyes were wild with excitement. "Look at this luxury, paid for by the tithes we give him! I'm taking some of it home to delight my family. And what I can't carry, I'll smash!" The Littleport Riot Song He pours strong beer upon troubled waters, We needed bread and he gave us beer; The parson knows his turkey's cooked; There's a riot going on around here. He throws the Book and the Riot Act at us, We needed bread and he gave us beer; The parson knows his turkey's cooked; There's a riot going on around here. Chorus: Hurl the Littleport streets upon the great! We grab and smash and enter and break; The parson knows his turkey's cooked; There's a riot going on around here. We needed bread like it says in the Bible, And he fills our bellies with fire and beer The parson knows his turkey's cooked; There's a riot going on around here. The Man in the Book broke bread with the crowd While Vachel goes home to his squire’s deer; The parson knows his turkey's cooked; There's a riot going on around here. Chorus: Hurl the Littleport streets upon the great! We grab and smash and enter and break; The parson knows his turkey's cooked; There's a riot going on around here. The smashing of glass and furniture and the yelling of light-headed labourers reached a climax and died down at last. The crowd had slaked its thirst for revenge, if not for beer. Wlliam Beamis said to me, " Don't judge them too harshly, John. A cobbler like me has to puzzle out problems and the time to do it too. A soldier like you gets used to taking orders from a man with a plan. A labourer hoeing the black fen the same way all his life doesn't get much chance to think outside the furrow. They've been under the landlord's money-stuffed fist, the parish overseer's eye and the parson's nose so long. The war made it worse but the end of the war's made it worse still. They're like that volcano, held down under this black fen until all they can do is blow their top. The only way the agricultural labourer ever got the price of bread down and wages up is by riot. They did it in Norwich a while back. It's the only voice they've got. They can't vote - there's no-one to speak for them in that gentlemen's parliament - they can't even combine legally. Let the lads have their fun. I'll get them to Ely and we'll get the magistrates to agree terms they did in Southery and then we can all go home happy." Behind every bread riot, you'll always find a load of cobblers like Beamis. He was a well read and generous master and training me well as a shoemaker but I didn't want his politics. " This lot aren't your precious Jacobins, William. They just want affordable bread and a living wage." "So did the Jacobins. A living wage and cheap bread IS a revolution in this austerity-divided nation. But if you won't listen to me, send for John Dennis the publican," he added. "He's their champion. And recent grief has taught him the iniquity of things as they are. Apart from which…" he tapped his nose, philosophically, "he's got a quantity of shot stashed away in his pub."… I nodded. I knew John Dennis and liked him. He could speak to a mob like a general speaks to an army. "Well done lads!" said Dennis in his pub later. He distributed shot, got a cheer from all, and sent out a group to relieve Aaron Chevell's hated landlord Farmer Hooray Henry Tansley of three horses and a waggon, which we loaded up like an armoured vehicle. And we laid our plans for the next day, Ely fair day. © Gareth Calway 2016.

John Dennis sent us home to fetch bludgeons, pitchforks, muck cromes and fork staffs headed with iron spikes, fowling pieces and fowlers guns, which I inspected with a soldier's eye. Some were 7 to 10 feet long and carried 2lbs of shot - and could kill at a distance of 150 yards. Harley's son Isaac mounted the fowler's guns fore and aft on the waggon, making an armoured vehicle of it. He tried to work out how to speed up the wheels. "You should have been an engineer, Isaac," said Beamis. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air "An engineer! He can't even write his own name," said Harley but his son Isaac beamed at the compliment. "Perhaps one day in a country that allows working people to show their skills instead of burying them, a descendant of yours will invent an engine to astonish the world,"mused Beamis."Then the name of Harley will rule the roads." John Dennis looked at the rustic army, brandishing its weapons. " We're not just a poaching gang now, lads! The March of the Fen Tigers We are the Fen Tigers Marching to Ely at dawn We are the Fen Tigers, Blowing our Littleport horn. We are the Fen Tigers, Marching for work and for pay. We are the Fen Tigers, We're Fenny that way. We are the Fen Tigers Like the hunters of old, We are the Fen Tigers, Hungry and angry and bold. We are the Fen Tigers, No-one to put our case, We are the Fen Tigers, Rioting out of our place. We are the Fen Tigers, It's self-help or keep off the shelves We are the Fen Tigers And so we help ourselves! We are the Fen Tigers Like the hunters of old, We are the Fen Tigers, Hungry and angry and bold. 'We are the fen tigers. Hungry and angry and free.' As we entered Ely at the Oakery between 5 and 6 am, Parson John Vachel met us in the road with a fellow magistrate - Reverend William Metcalfe. We jeered. (jeer) "Now listen to me!" snorted Vachel. But we'd heard too many of his sermons. "Shut up!' we told him, or words to that effect. George Crow drove the Harley right at the magistrate and our cheering labourers' army swept past him and into the city. A crowd grew to 500 and formed in the market place outside the White Hart Inn. "What do you want?" the terrified magistrates asked us. We told them- © Gareth Calway 2016

‘Our children are starving – to feed them! Give us a living wage! They invited a deputation into The White Hart and the following paper was drawn up- "The magistrates agree and do order that the overseer shall pay to each femilee 2s per head per week when Flour is Half a Crown a stone and that the price of labour shall be 2s a day whether Married or Single- My father added, "and that the LABOURER SHALL BE PAID HIS FULL WAGE BY THE FARMER WHO HIRES HIM. Not the parish." And we all roared agreement. At this point, the Rector of Downham - a magistrate, aptly named Law- joined the meeting and approved this seditious act - a living wage. And here all might have had a happy ending and gone home. But for that ass named Law. Dennis, representing us, and dispensing more of the right spirit in his pub-keeper's voice than all these 'Thou shalt not' churchmen ever did, asked for "forgiveness for what has passed." "No." brayed Law, mulishly. The crowd began to chant- "Then we have done nothing. We will agree to nothing. We will have blood before dinner! "(crowd participation x2) "No." brayed Law again. Again the crowd chanted, and louder still- "Then we have done nothing. We will agree to nothing. We will have blood before dinner! "(crowd participation x2) "Law is an ass!" I added. And everyone laughed. "Oh all right," the magistrates conceded. And once again Parson Vachell fed the mob's wildness with barrels of free beer. But I noticed Law's shut face. The ass would bray later that the concession didn't count because the magistrates had been intimidated. At this point, the Fen Tigers - breaking all the rules of military strategy, left the field victorious and returned to Littleport. All except a hard core - including me and Jack - who were joined by what they would call Ely's 'refractory inhabitants' and by some labourers from Downham. Our lot jeered over the latter, contrasting our 100 guinea burglaries with their three shilling ones, before the whole mob began demanding beer from local publicans. Suitably refreshed, it started looking for the men we hated even more than the farmers and the vicars, if possible. The millers. William Beamis organised a 'collection' of funds. "We elect John Dennis our treasurer. All in favour say Aye!" "Aye," yelled the crowd. William Gotobed, the bricklayer who'd robbed Robert Whitmore in Littleport of two pitchforks and a gun, suddenly discharged the latter into Richmond the miller's house. That was the moment I saw the widow of my old army buddy Hobbes, among the many wild women milling about the streets. "Sarah! By all that's wonderful." "John Morris! Am I glad to see you fighting this good fight instead of the one that killed my Hobbes in France. Down with the profiteering millers! Who's next?" "Cooper! Cooper!" shrieked a hundred desperate wives and mothers. "Starver of our children." " He keeps a flour and grocery shop the other side of this churchyard and he's a vicious profiteer." 200 angry men and women were now shouting and banging at Cooper's door. "Five pounds. Five pounds! (audience participation) "Five pounds or we kill Cooper!" shouted South. "Five pounds or we kill Cooper!" "No need to kill him," said John Dennis. An incident reported to the jury later by a Mr Edwards, Ely agent of the Cambridge bank Mortock and Co, trying to help Dennis. It did - into a hangman's noose. The rest of Thursday was given over - in the language of the court - to 'rioting and drinking in Ely.' I woke up in Sarah's bed!! "Where is everybody?" "Gone home to Littleport. Except that lot below banging on my door for you." I heard Robert Salmon's unmistakeable yell under the window, at the head of a crowd of labourers. He'd been back to Littleport and stolen Cutlack's gun again. "A few of our lot have been taken prisoner, John. Bring your gun. There's soldiers about. " "Where's John Dennis?" I asked, getting my breeches on. "Out buying celebration ribands the last I saw," called Salmon. A shot buried itself in Sarah's roof. "Watch where you're a-shooting, Robert loose fire Salmon," giggled Sarah. "You’re worse than Willie Gotobed! It's been a while since I had a man in my bed. I want this one kept alive!" I kissed Sarah like I hadn't kissed all the girls I could have in France, because of Mary. "I have to go and help these lads storm a gaol. Au revoir, ma cherie." "Never mind your 'au revoirs I'm coming with you!" Sarah said. We found Dennis and Beamis in the market place dancing with the locals in a riot of red and black skirts and scarves. We had a few turns ourselves. Then we broke into Ely gaol and got our lads out. It was the best day since we marched into Paris.

Sarah came with us back to Littleport. … (She and I would marry on her release from Ely gaol a year later. Not everyone would have such a happy ending.) Dennis was in his cups and his element giving out ribands to his 'heroes'. "We have done everything well and they gave us credit for it!" he exulted, holding up a quart of his stock in trade before keeling over backwards as drunk as the lords we'd beaten. The next day, Friday, I woke up in the hemp field, a drunken mile east of Littleport. I thought I was in heaven, especially when I saw Sarah's lovely face smiling down at me, but then I heard what had woken me up. (drum) The thunder of vengeful hooves. (drum) It was like the 4 horses of the Apocalypse, riding a clap of thunder along the far side of the field. (drum x 2) A detachment of horse at full charge through the hemp! Dragoons!! I grabbed Sarah's hand and we ran towards the George and Dragon. Right into the main force of dragoons under the command of the Reverend Sir Henry Bate Dudley (Bart) the Fightin' Parson. It seems Dudley and his dragoons had already 'pacified' Ely and now he was coming for us. I think I knew then the game was up. "Dudley you old ram!" I shouted. "Fencing off the land we fought for - and now playing God on your high horse against an army of labourers. Where were you at Waterloo?" Baaaaa! The Ballad of the Fighting Parson (Reverend Sir Henry Bate Baronet Dudley) To the farmers and ladies and burghers of England, Its millers and shopkeeping folk, Reverend Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Bart's Its saviour - to us he's a Joke This duelling Prebendary of Ely, This fencer of commons, this fraud, His sermons misfiring like grapeshot and nails, His snob-sneering wine of the Lord. Ely is burning with hell fire - huzza! - Its very Cathedral at stake! East Anglia's giant, the slumbering poor, Hears a Littleport horn and awakes! He stands in his stirrups of Crossness for Christ, With his Calvary cavalry, Delivers his Sermons of wrath from his mount, "You're the salt of the earth, I'm the sea. (pun on bishop's see) "You are lost sheep wolfing our granaries, stacks, Spooking our horses and dens, Behold my Triumphant Entry, I've come To shepherd you back to your pens. Ely is burning with hell fire - huzza! - Its very Cathedral at stake! East Anglia's giant, the slumbering poor, Hears a Littleport horn and awakes! Reverend Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Bart With his Royal dragoons, Royston guards Brings Ely to heel with his heavenly sword Then to Littleport rides full charge. Drunk as the lords that we mastered a day, Lords again of our green common land, In the George where we've spent all our spirit and loot We make our last drunken stand. Ely is burning with hell fire - huzza! - Its very Cathedral at stake! East Anglia's giant, the slumbering poor, Hears a Littleport horn and awakes! Reverend Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Bart, Orders our flock to 'Surrender!' Rutter seizes a ruddy great iron bar And crowns Dudley's head with thunder (huzza!) But the crowd's jeering jaw is sabred, it's gone, As squaddies get knocked from their saddles, Tom Sindall, esaping, is shot through the head, We run for the fens and the paddles. Ely is burning with hell fire - huzza! - Its very Cathedral at stake! East Anglia's giant, the slumbering poor, Hears a Littleport horn and awakes! John Morris and I row across the Red Ouse Seeing double dragoons behind us; The troops swim with one arm, guns in the other, Our poor force is spent and they bind us. 80 lost rams who broke through the fence Now rounded up, carted to prison With a sermon before the assizes from (guess who?) Farmer Dudley, the Fighting Parson. Ely is burning with hell fire - huzza! - Its very Cathedral at stake! East Anglia's giant, the slumbering poor, Hears a Littleport horn and awakes! Says Sir Henry Bate Dudley, Magistrate, Bart, "What's needed is more troops to govern -A yet sterner God and a yet firmer Law- Your 'riotous disposition'" The blessed meek riot with cause, so un-cause, Give us work and not poverty! Blessed are the poor - someone tell Reverend Sir Henry Bate Baronet Dudley. Ely is burning with hell fire - huzza! - Its very Cathedral at stake! East Anglia's giant, the slumbering poor, Hears a Littleport horn and awakes!

A few rioters got away for a day or two, sheltered by fellow labourers. Harley and his son and John Dennis - still with £25 on him - got as far as West Dereham where loyal souls hid him. A few were given up by the poor and desperate for rewards, not many. William Gotobed got clean away to London, and scot free, but after petitions by locals on his behalf came home 7 years later to a wife and family on the parish and a Littleport where little had changed, except that it had kept getting worse. 56 of us were rounded up on the same night - including me - and 48 more the next day. In the end, 80 of us had three weeks to stare into the void of Ely gaol and fear the worst. The Freeborn Englishman, who kept Europe out at Waterloo; slain by his real enemies at home. The night before sentencing, I couldn't sleep, listening to Isaac Harley groaning with the bullet wounds he'd got at the Battle of Littleport. "If I hadn't worn three waistcoats, I'd be dead. I wish I was," he groaned. Young South told him gloomily he'd get his wish soon enough. His pastor's testament had made sure of that, just as Henry Martin's had done for Crow. When they sent in a minister to prepare him for death, it wouldn't be Vachell. A mad poet once told my old sergeant, 'God damn this king - to defend the Bible in this year of 1793 would cost a man his life. "If at the Church they would give us some ale, and a pleasant fire, our souls to regale: We'd sing and pray all the live-long day: Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray." Sarge reported him of course but John Dennis's alehouse really was like that: the kind of warm, welcoming place a church should be, a place to forget worldly cares. So when Dennis signed a public confession of our sinful sedition with a low church minister, earnestly counselling that none follow our riotous path to the everlasting bonfire, I was amazed. It rewrote the whole story, making a villainy of our protest and a virtue of oppression. I always wondered why Dennis did it. But the illiterate labourers he'd led were all so overwhelmed by the court proceedings, had no idea of how to defend themselves. In the complete absence of legal representation, did even Dennis need divine help to lead us? Whatever it was, I'll never forget him praying all night that the Judge would take pity on our poverty. The God of Vachel and Dudley answered that prayer the next day. "None of your offences were instigated by distress. As prosecution lawyer Gurney has ably pointed out, you were all in receipt of 'great wages'. We laughed. Farmer Martin was praised as 'a leader highly esteemed in the district' and later made a magistrate. Deadly Dudley The Fightin' Parson, who thundered the Ely Cathedral sermon that opened the trials in what the papers called "a most animated and impwessive manner" and said re-introducing the long-discredited sentence of transportation on the hulks was fitting punishment for "men like us" was voted a public subscription of £179. 13s. Parson Vachell's version of events earned him an inflated £708 9s!! in compensation from the cash-strapped Isle of Ely. History is written by the vicar. 23 men and one woman - Sarah - faced the death penalty. 24 cases were judged a sufficient example. (And it was - in the 1830 riots, the fen tigers remained as tame and quiet as the hanged men's communal grave.) The rest - including Dad, Matthew and me - were cautioned against the evils of drink and allowed to go free. "You will not be called to answer for your offences, though you must pay a recognizance of £50." "What does that mean?" hissed Matthew, who had been in a bewildered funk all week. "It means we're not for the drop," I whispered, listening to them building a new one outside for the purpose. "If we behave," said Dad in a flat voice," though God knows where we're going to get £50 from." John Dennis was praying for mercy as the Judge put his black cap on. The Ballad of Death By Hanging (Ely, 1816) John Dennis of Littleport, aged 42, For Felonious Riot and Burgling Fifty Pound Notes from an Ely house, I sentence you - death by hanging. William Beamis of Littleport, aged the same, For Felonoius Riot and Robbing A One Pound Note from a Littleport man, I sentence you - death by hanging. Isaac Harley of Littleport, 33, For Housebreaking, Riot and Stealing The plate, linen, china of John Vachel, clerk, I sentence you - death by hanging." The 11th hour comes, lads, we won't see a 12th, Only parson and hangman and darkness, We're names on a church wall, a cautionary tale Of the rigged scales of British Justice. James Newell, James Rutter, John Jefferson For Riot and Felony in Ely, John Easey, John Walker, Mark Benton, I sentence you… transportation. Thomas South of Littleport, aged 22, For Riot and Breaking and Burgling A Littleport drapers and grocery shop, I sentence you - death by hanging. George Crow of Littleport, aged 23, For Riot in Ely and Burgling Of Cutlacks and Waddlelow's of Littleport, I sentence you - death by hanging. The 11th hour comes, lads, we won't see a 12th, Only parson and hangman and darkness, We're names on a church wall, a cautionary tale Of the skewed scales of British Justice. The Jury has no doubt, it wants us put In our place of execution, A moment to pray, then to suffer the price Of our faux French revolution. On the brink of eternity, five men stand, Witnesses keenly attending, "We acknowledge our crimes and the justice received" Then a jolt - and five bodies swinging. "May the awful fate of these unhappy men Produce the intended effect Deterring all others from similar crimes …With an iron heel on your necks." The 11th hour comes, lads, we won't see a 12th, Only parson and hangman and darkness, We're names on a church wall, a cautionary tale, Of the stacked scales of British Justice The 11th hour comes, lads, we won't see a 12th, Only parson and hangman and darkness, We're names on a church wall, a cautionary tale, Of the corrupt scales of British Justice. (pointing at audience like a fire and brimstone preacher) May their awful fate be a warning to others. © Gareth Calway 2016.

5 men - a publican, a cobbler - - John Dennis, William Beamis - and three illiterate labourers Thomas South, George Crow and Isaac Harley, were hanged for "diverse robberies during the riots in Ely and Littleport." Nineteen others were sentenced to death but were reprieved. Richard Rutter the rioter at Ely who said that "I might as well be hanged as starved" wasn't. He was transported for life instead. Joseph Easey, John Jefferson, Aaron Chevell, James Newell and Richard Jessop were transported for 14 years. John Easey, Mark Benton and John Walker were transported for 7 years Ten others, including Sarah Hobbs, the only convicted woman, were given 12 months in Ely gaol. Sarah and I married on her release from Ely gaol a year later. We went into service with a retired but energetic admiral named Croft and his wife who'd taken over a stately home in Somerset from a decaying baronet and wanted the place made ship shape. "Move out all these damned mirrors the baronet posed in while admiring his entry in The Peerage," he laughed. We got Jack a job there too. It suited us better than slaving for some Hooray Henry who'd never fought for the land he 'owned'. In 1817, Sarah bore me a son. Before the riots, I'd have named him Arthur after my old hero the 'Iron' Duke of Wellington. But when I found out the 'Iron' referred to the iron shutters he erected on his London mansion windows against the rioting poor, I changed my mind. We called our boy 'William' after a philosopher who dreamed of a fairer world and tried to make it come true. And was hanged for it.