From Yesterday’s Warminster, by Danny Howell, published in March 1987:
As well as films, the Palace Cinema in Warminster presented other entertainment including plays, pantomimes, operas and music. A benefit concert in June 1914, in aid of the fund for widows and orphan of the Empress Of Ireland disaster, featured a recitation by Mr. Dunford, a violin solo of Handel’s Sonata by C. Gray, songs by Gresham Robinson, and a song called The Camel’s Hump performed by Mrs Rothwell. Star turn of the show was Warminster resident Jack Neat, the son of the Fire Brigade Captain, J.H. Neat. Jack sang Anchored, one of the many songs for which he penned the music. He was well-known in London musical circles, where he often gave organ recitals. Among his other compositions were Catchy-Coo, Rhoda Ran A Pagoda, Weary Willie and March Rhodesia. The latter was dedicated to the Rt. Hon. Cecil Rhodes, and copies of the song were presented to the Royal Family and the Lord Mayor of London. Making an impromptu visit from the capital to his home town in January 1904, Jack Neat gave a solo concert at the Athenaeum, presided over by his father. He played his own numbers including The Ragged Dude, The Society Cakewalk, and The Skittle-Alley Coon. His biggest ‘hit’ of all time was probably She’s A Lassie From Lancashire, which became a popular music hall favourite and is still sung in variety shows today.
She’s A Lassie From Lancashire was co-composed with another Warminster resident, Charles Pearce, who once lived at 23 East Street (now demolished). Charles Pearce left Warminster in July 1891, when he was 17 and, under the stage name of Charles Cardow, became a popular singer, dancer and composer in his own right. Among his classic compositions was I Wouldn’t Leave My Little Wooden Hut For You. The big names of the day, including Vesta Tilley and Sir Harry Lauder, featured many of his songs in their acts. One of Charles Cardow’s biggest ‘hits’ was a song he composed one afternoon in Liverpool after noticing how the sailors in uniform seemed to have the prettiest girls on their arms. Instantly inspired, he jotted down a title and quickly wrote the verses and melody for All The Nice Girls Love A Sailor.
She’s A Lassie From Lancashire
From a dear little Lancashire town
A boy had sailed away,
Across the briny spray
To toil in the U.S.A.
When American girls gathered round
And sought his company
He’d say “There’s only one girl for meâ€
Chorus:
“She’s a lassie from Lancashire,
Just a lassie from Lancashire,
She’s the lassie that I love dear,
Oh, so dear!
Though she’s dressed in clogs and shawl,
She’s the prettiest of them all,
None could be fairer or rarer than Sarah,
My lass from Lancashireâ€
Night and day of his lassie he’d dream,
And under love’s sweet spell
He’d hear the fact’ry bell,
The sound he knew so well,
Home from work they would walk once again,
And though in reverie,
He’d say “There’s only one girl for meâ€
– Chorus
Day by day he kept plodding away,
And to his task he stuck,
Till by a stroke of luck,
A paying vein he struck,
As he wrote her to tell her that he
Would shortly cross the sea,
He’d say “There’s only one girl for meâ€
– Chorus
Charles Cardow’s more important claim to fame was his idea of staging seaside concert parties at English coastal resorts, based on the old minstrel shows made popular by the Christy Minstrels of America. In his final years, Charles Cardow lived at 65 Licander Road Mossley Hill, Liverpool, where he died in 1967.
