“We come a Cob-coaling for Bonfire time,
Your coal and your money we hope to enjoy.
Fal-a-dee, fal-a-die, fal-a-diddly-i-do-day.
For down in yon’ cellar there’s an owd umberella
And up on yon’ cornish there’s an owd pepperpot.
Pepperpot! Pepperpot! Morning ’till night.
If you give us nowt, we’ll steal nowt and bid you good night.
Up a ladder, down a wall, a cob o’coal would save us all.
If you don’t have a penny a ha’penny will do.
If you don’t have a ha’penny, then God bless you.
We knock at your knocker and ring at your bell
To see what you’ll give us for singing so well.”
So goes a short song sung in this case by south Lancashire children as they went around collecting wood for the fire and any money they could for fireworks. The custom appears to have restricted to around the Lancashire and Yorkshire areas, the former unsurprisingly a coal area and each area would have different versions. On the East of the M60 blog some variants are suggested by commenters to a post on Cob coaling. A Peter Swarbrick notes:
“I lived in Denton during the 40’s and 50’s when Halloween was a Scottish custom that we had nothing to do with. When we went calling, the words to our song were as follows: We come a cob calling for bonfire plot
There’s nowt in yon corner but an old pepper pot Fol der ee, fol der ee, fol der ee dum dy day, Guy Guy Guy stick him in the eye Tie him to a lamp post And there let him die Christmas is coming The geese are getting fat, Please put a penny in the old man’s hat. If you haven’t got a penny A ha’penny will do If you haven’t got a ha’penny Then god bless you.”
Interesting to note a link with Christmas showing the creeping early intervention of the custom is no new thing perhaps. Also on the blog a Duncan Graham similarly notes:
“In Hyde we used to sing We’ve come a cob coaling, cob coaling, cob coaling. We’ve come a cob coaling for bonfire night. Good tidings we bring to your your king, We’ve come a cob coaling for bonfire night.”
Also a Rob Standing also notes that:
“The last two lines are new to me, but otherwise the song is identical to what we sang in Hathershaw, Oldham in the early 1960’s, except we sang ‘If you give us owt, we’ll steal nowt and bid you good night.
Small but crucial change (and slightly threatening in retrospect) which makes more sense.”
It appears to have surprised until the late 1970s and early 80s. It is possible that it survived into the 1990s as it is mentioned by Quentin Cooper and Paul Sullivan’s 1993 maypoles, martyrs and mayhem on the 21st October saying :
“in the weeks leading up to November the 5th bonfires have to be built. Nicking gates is not the way to win a neighbour’s affections; and so it was that the organised fuel collecting tradition was born. Cob Coaling was the North’s version of this. It survives around Stalybridge and Dunkinfield, just east of Manchester. Children go from door to door sing cob-coaling songs and asking for lumps of wood as well as money for fireworks. The cob coaling song has the complex and erudite chorus:
“We’ve come a cob-coaling, cob coaling, cob coaling, We’ve come a cob coaling for Bonfire night.”
Sadly despite the memorable song it appears to have died out. The death of cob coaling would appear to have been the same factors that have been claimed to have caused the demise of Penny for the Guy the growth of modern estates with reduced area for bonfires combined with the restrictions on the sale of fireworks. Today cob-coaling is fondly remembered by over 40s and a few folk singers. Although it may survive in some areas you never know!
In search of traditional customs and ceremonies 