Dear Tobacco reel

The 3rd tune from a set played by the
High Level Ranter’s “ Four in a Bar” As in the Charleton Memorial Book..In John Hall’s Manuscript (1833) bar 2 the g is a crotchet with “fed” triplet

In John Hall’s it appears as “Tobacco’s Dear”. There’s a couple of other differences in that version as well, namely in the 3rd bar of each part:

|:eAAc BGA2|eAAf g2 (3fed|eAAc BGA2|G2GB dedB:|
|:efge fga2|efge dedB|efge fga2|G2GB dedB:|

Apparently it’s not recorded anywhere else, so these 2 versions are all we have to go on.

Maybe you could put it with “The Ale Is Dear”!

I,ve just remembered a Lakeland version of this tune(from Matthew Bethem of Towcett)
||:BEEF G/F/E/D/F2| BEEc dcBA|BEEF G/F/E/D/F2|
D>E/dc dcBA:||
||:Beef g/f/e/d/E2|Beef gefd|Bdde d/c/B/c/ d2|
faaf dcBa:||

The Lakeland version above (or something pretty close) is on the Boat Band CD, a “trip to the lakes” as a polka.

Apart from the semiquavers that have turned into crochets in the B part this is pretty much the version of the tune as publish in ‘1000 English Country Dance Tunes’ by Michael Raven.

The Lakeland version is not a polka. Polkas came later in the 1840’s. It is a type of reel which is found in books from the 1700’s. These tunes, with patterns of 4 semi-quavers were only played in Scotland or Northern England.
Semi-quaver patterns like this also occur in strathspeys.

From Deb Chalmers who is currently running the Ealing folk sessions course.