"Rags and Bones and Ballads"

John Ruffold

by James Gellatly

also see Row Twenty One

The bar room of the Three Herrings was crowded one Saturday evening in 1884. The Scottish fishing season in Great Yarmouth was at its height and in the spacious tap room packed almost to excess were many hefty fellows "frae ayont the Tweed". They were in "fer their Wee Drappie"- often more than was good for them.

Suddenly above the confused murmur of the conversation sounded a roar of welcome as George Ruffold and his eight year old son John entered.

"Here they come"

"Now for a good song"

Come on Ruffold! Lets have one of your best!

"All right, me hearties, what's it to be?

"Aw give us a verse or twa o' Annie Lawrie", shouted a big Scot. "We'll a jine in the chorus; we ken that fine".

"Right ye are boys.....come on Johnnie!" and in a rich baritone, the public house singer, accompanied by the sweet piping tones of the boy, lifted the lovely old Scottish ballad:

Maxwelton braes are bonnie

Where early fa's the dew,

it was there that Annie Lawrie

Gied me her promise true,

Gied me....

The refrain was taken up by the whole room, with an enthusiasm that made itself heard for a long way down the quayside.

When the song was finished, a great round of applause was accorded, and drinks were pressed upon the singers, father and son alike. The little boy drank his beer with the air of an experienced toper, while the men looked on approvingly; for with most of the frequenters of those houses beer drinking and manliness were one and the same thing.

Another song was called for, and Ruffold the elder produced from his pocket a sheaf of ballad sheets. These were passed round for sale at a penny each, and soon several dozens were disposed of. The song selected this time was a so-called god old drinking song. Father and son sang again, and received an ovation. Then they passed on their way to the next public house.

So it went on 'til a very late hour that Saturday night. By the time that they had reached their last house of call, Ruffold and his boy were hardly able to stand. Their voices too, had become incoherent; but that didn't matter very much, as by that time of night their audiences were likewise in a fuddled state and incapable of judging the merits of anything.

At last the pair turned their faces homeward, but to what a home! The mother was a poor enough creature, who took little or no interest in her husband or children. Their home was just a sleeping convenience, and wretched enough for that.

Ruffold senior, now getting toward middle life, was noted all over the town for his wild and dissolute habits. People shook their heads when they spoke of the Ruffolds, and how they were bringing up their boy, who was dragged around the public houses of a night and plied with drink. A law should be made to stop such goings on!

Such happenings as this did eventually bring about the law prohibiting children from entering public houses.

But meantime young Ruffold was a source of profit to his depraved parents. The child's welfare was subordinated to the selfish desire of the drunkard to put money in his pocket and beer down his throat.

John's mother gipsy girl, had met her husband when he had followed her tribe around the country. She had married him when she was eighteen years of age. the next year or two they had spent in going from place to place, hawking simple wares and living loosely in lodging houses, and sometimes out in the open.

During the fishing season or perhaps in the summer they would trek to Great Yarmouth, where young Mrs Ruffold would divide her time between gutting herrings on the quayside and making beds at a nearby public house and lodging house, where they looked after her little family. Her husband meanwhile sold lemonade and other seasonable commodities- on the quayside in winter, and on the beach in summer. but he drank practically all that he earned. The mother also drank freely so that from the start their married life was sordid.

From time to time they would go back to the east end of London. It was during one of these periods in 1876, that John their third child was born, in a Bethnal Green. side street. Not a long way from there, eleven years before William Booth had begun his great work.

The baby was only three weeks old when his parents turned once more to the seaside town, travelling by water; and by reason of the rough weather it took them about twenty hours to reach the port. This time they decided to remain in Yarmouth. Ruffold set up a kind of sugar boiling business, and hawked his "lollipops" as he called them, in exchange for rags and bones.

His wife with her three little ones went in other directions, hawking sundry items of haberdashery.

Johnny's first recollection is of being carried by his mother's side as she tramped from street to street selling her goods. The warmth of her body and the snugness of the shawl in which he was carried are vivid memories to this day.

John grew into a sturdy little lad. His father was quick to notice that hew had inherited an attractive singing voice, and in spite of a certain crude fondness for his son, he did not hesitate to exploit him, at a very tender age, for his own ends. He cared little for the child's morals or for other consequences; so for years the boy knew only too much of debauchery and other evils.

School age found Johnnie in new surroundings. True to type he associated with the wilder elements of the school. He became the leader of a gang of boys only too well acquainted with the master's cane. He hated letters and figures from the first, and often had to stand in a corner with the dunce's cap upon his head. Not that that troubled him; his chief thought was always to get out of school to be up to some mischief.

Life without adventure was intolerable to young Ruffold. The imagination of the youth of those days was fired by the Buffalo Bill wild west stories. Johnny would dearly have loved to possess a pistol. Somehow he had got hold of a policeman's truncheon, which he was in the habit of carrying beneath his tatters.

It was the real thing! he was regarded by members of his gang as being "quick on the draw", and was feared and respected by the young desperadoes of the school.

He loaned his precious weapon to a pal one day, for use on the head of another boy- and it was half an hour before the victim was restored to consciousness under the town pump. Ruffold long remembered the scare the gang had before the boy came round.

One evening the gang entered certain premises intent on robbery. They were discovered and chased by a policeman on his beat, but, dodging him, they managed to conceal themselves in a railway goods wagon. While they were in hiding there , the train moved out, carrying them miles away from the town before it stopped and they were able to clamber out.

They had no idea where they were, but crossing some fields in the moonlight, they struck a main road, and on making cautious enquiries, they found it was the road to Yarmouth. There was nothing for it but to start on a weary tramp back home, which they reached in the morning, only to be arrested and receive a liberal application of the birch-rod.

Out of school hours, John was required to help his father with what work was on hand, including the sale of lollipops (for rags and bones). But their main collaboration remained the public-house round, from which they could be seen with sad regularity staggering home at a very late hour. One night both were so drunk that they lost their way in the darkness, and in the morning found themselves lying in a ditch, which fortunately was dry.

On leaving school, the lad answered a "boy wanted" advertisement in a second-hand clothing shop. From this however, he was discharged after a week for being dressed too shabbily.

John decided to launch out in business for himself. He stole a fish box, converted it into a shoe-black's stand and procured what brushes a drunkard's home could afford. Other members of the shoe-shine fraternity resented his intrusion, and "sent him packing" repeatedly; but Ruffold , whose shoes he was cleaning. He lost his temper and bashed the old man's hat down over his ears. He was given in charge, tried for assault, and sentenced to seven days hard labour.

Carrying bricks to the bricklayers who were building a new wing to the prison was a gruelling experience- hard work for a week- no pay and no beer!

Johnny Ruffold tired of the shoe-black trade; he wanted a change. He had become acquainted with several showmen, and he was accepted as an assistant at a travelling freak show, which had a fair run of success in various parts of the country, and at the Agricultural Hall in London.

A special feature of this show was a dwarf, a native of Yarmouth, known at home by the name of "Tuppenny Rice", but for show purposes as "Sir Richard Crossley". Other exhibits were a sheep with five legs, a chicken with one wing, and a composite animal reminiscent of the beast of the apocalypse- a creature with a goats head ans six horns, a sheep's body and a cat's tail.

All went well for a while, but the show began to wilt. Funds ran low. Eventually the concern became bankrupt, and was sold up. The dwarf retuned to his home, and his six feet tall wife (against his thirty-four inches!) To carry on his more prosaic calling of boot and shoe repairer.

Ruffold, not wanting to leave the business, obtained a job with another showman.

This time his role was to stand in a coffin placed on end, with his face showing through an aperture from which downward a gruesome skeleton was painted on the coffin. The challenge to the public was : Three balls for twopence! Every time you hit his fat head, you win a fat cigar!

A smack from one of those balls of rubber was more painful than from a boxing glove with a fierce fist behind it. Fortunately for Ruffold there were not many hits, but every hit was a misfortune for the man standing in the coffin. Night after night he would crawl to his bed in a corner under the roundabouts, with bruises on his poor face, and sometimes a black eye- a fine advertisement for the next days work.

The boss, an unscrupulous fellow, often cheated his assistant out of his rightful wages. One day Ruffold was caught stealing corn to appease his hunger; he was sentenced to a fine of 10 shillings or 7 days in jail. His boss paid the fine on condition that John remained in his service. Ruffold consented, but was now so thoroughly disgusted that he stayed only a week longer before he cleared out.

Somehow he scraped together a little money, bought a pedlar's licence and a very small stock of goods, and set out to travel the country. Sometimes he made enough to get a night's doss, but often he slept in the open. After wandering from place to place for some time, he turned his steps towards his home town. One day, in Colchester, he heard a familiar voice. It was his father, singing in the street, and selling his ballad sheets. "Hallo Dad" shouted young Ruffold, "I didn't know you had left home"."Yus, my son", replied the father. "I got sick of the old trade there, and at this time of year there ain't much doin', so 'ere I am."

Like father like son. Both were restless spirits. They decided on a partnership, and for a while it was quite like old times, but it did not last long. Summed up, it was just drink, drink, and more drink. Soon they quarrelled and separated.

The son had thought out another idea to gain a living. He would try to write some original ballads or recitals, have them printed, and then recite or sell them in the streets and market places. The subjects chosen were shipwrecks, murders and other sensational current events.

Ballad singing and reciting at that time was a very popular form of entertainment, and young Ruffold was amazed at the success which attended his efforts. In six months he turned over nearly one hundred pounds. He kept a list of his works in those days:-

subject Number sold £ - s. -d.

Southend Murder 2,000 8 6 8

Yorkshire Murder 2,000 8 6 8

Old Mother Dyer 2,000 8 6 8

Seaman Fowler 1,000 4 3 4

Yarmouth Murder 2,000 8 6 8

Parson and Norwich Lady 5,000 20 16 8

Gorleston Vicar 1,000 4 3 4

Diss murder 2,000 8 6 8

On one occasion however, the ballad writer was caught out. He had written a ballad on a recent murder; at the last minute a reprieve was granted, and two thousand sheets were wasted.

When the demand for ballads on such sordid topics began to wane, Ruffold struck out on a rather inconsistent line, which in any case could not persist long; he wrote temperance ballads! For a time he did fairly well, but it soon became known that the tee-total champion could be found any night in the public houses of the town, enjoying the profits of his days work - so finis!

By this time the drink habit absolutely dominated him. It was quite an ordinary thing, when he competed with one of his boozing mates , for two of them in the course of two hours, to drink between them, thirty to thirty-five pints of beer.

The pressure sometimes caused bleeding at the nose, which would last several hours.

One morning Ruffold found himself in a strange room, an attic. He woke up shivering with the cold in the grey dawn; he had been lying on a small bed fully dressed. Sitting up he looked around. There was no door in this queer room, only a small skylight.

"Where am I?" he wondered. "How did I get in here?" "Puzzled, he investigated, walking around, and tapping the walls. But he could find no door; apparently he was a prisoner. He shouted, but there was no response. Really scared, he walked again round his "prison".

This time he kicked a mat aside, and discovered a trap-door. Lifting it he made his way down a step ladder, to find that he was in the house of a drinking pal. He had been brought up to the spare room helplessly drunk the night before, to sleep off the effects of his debauch.

Sometimes he would go to sea in a fishing boat, or find a job unloading the herring catch. But, being a true landsman, he was not fond of this kind of work, and only when he could get nothing else would he take to the work among the fish.

He was much more in his element pushing a rag and bone barrow, or selling his ballad sheets.

In Ruffold's life, Sunday was no different from other days. He had hardly ever seen the inside of a church; religion had no place in his wild life. If anything, Sunday was a specially busy day for him.

The sale of Sunday newspapers at that time was a vexed question in Great Yarmouth. Ruffold was in the forefront in this trade, and almost every week he was fined for selling Sunday papers (a far cry from todays liberal laws!); but the newsagents always paid the fine, so the offence was regularly repeated. The local authorities took the matter higher, but the newspaper proprietors stepped in, and paid the still higher fines imposed. Meanwhile Ruffold found a good deal of money by this Sunday work- money of course to pour down his throat.

One of the last of his "booze-ups", as he called them, was in the year 1901. Queen Victoria had passed away, and a great memorial service was being held in the parish church. A great circus was in the town at the time, and the large pavilion of the shown was erected on the market square to serve as an overflow for the crowds expected. Thousands of townspeople gathered to pay homage to the memory of the great Queen.

Ruffold was there too, but not to honour his late sovereign. One of the local tradesmen, who had shrewdly laid in a stock of memorial buttons, had asked Ruffold to be responsible for their sale, at a good profit. Here was a scoop, as he was the only one selling such emblems. By the time the service began he had sold out, and made a good few pounds profit.

He turned away from the hush and solemn service and sought out some of his boozing pals. In some surreptitious way they had secured a quantity of liquor, even though the public-houses were closed, and they spent the day in an orgy of drinking and gambling! In a couple of days or so, Ruffolds profit had vanished.

Such excesses resulted eventually in alcoholic poisoning. He was attacked by delirium tremens. One night, not long after the memorial service, he was carried with great difficulty to his lodgings, and put to bed in a state of raving madness. Becoming extremely violent, he was removed to the work-house infirmary, where he was placed in a padded room. When he had calmed a little, he was placed in a ward with a number of other men. There he lay in a critical state, his whole system on fire. He recalled the lower part of his body being packed in freshly fallen snow.

The death of several of the patients made a great impression upon Ruffold. For the first time he began to think about his soul. One poor fellow, well known to him, who had been a pedlar - homeless, friendless, with no known relatives - lay near him and persisted in rising from his bed and wandering up and down the ward. Ruffold's bed was placed as a barrier to prevent him getting out. One night Ruffold woke to find the dying man out of bed, leaning over him, muttering something, and staring at him with his dying eyes. Ruffold, terrified, shouted out. The night nurse came and got the poor man back to bed, where he died an hour or two later.

After seven weeks in the infirmary, Ruffold recovered; and while he did not become a tee-totaller, the experience put a check upon his excessive drinking.

In a vague way his mind was turning to serious things. He carried on his marine store business more steadily, and added a profitable line by collecting rabbit pelts, sometimes collecting a thousand a week. He began to gather quite a bit of money.

On his daily rounds he passed the quarters of the Salvation Army Officers. One day he was called in to take away some things, which almost filled his barrow. He called on them from time to time, and in due course was converted by their faith. If he saw them after that, his old boozing pals would call out: "Come on Ruffold, old man. Just one sparkling glass It'll do you no harm, but Ruffold held fast.

When William Booth attended meetings of Salvationists at the Royal Aquarium, he placed his hand on John Ruffold's head, and said "God bless you my lad".

In self denial week, he offered to collect from all of the rows. The salvationists had not troubled the people there, thinking them too poor, but Ruffold set himself to gather 30 shillings. "I'll get it in farthings he said, and did so, collecting £2 from those poor homes, and £3-10 s. In all, including a guinea he o received for a watercolour that he bought for a few pence. At the time of his conversion, Alderman E. J. Middleton wrote in the local press: "The Ruffold conversion has made a great impression on the town; he was so well known. His father was for years a Yarmouth character; a talented man, but an atheist and a drunkard- anything for beer. So when young Ruffold was saved, the news spread quickly through the town. His life was watched. He has stood the test, and the test has left him a conqueror."

About a year after his conversion, he felt the urge to become a Salvation Army Officer. He was accepted, and in due course entered training. The townsfolk presented him with an expensive travelling trunk.

In the year 1910 Ruffold had fallen on bad times. His marine store business had gone down a good deal, and he decided to sell up his little home, and emigrate to Canada. There he worked hard, and linked up with the Salvation Army Corps at Neepawa, Manitoba, but he never settled, and returned home in 1914.

Soon after war broke out, he found himself in the armed forces, and he served at Gallipoli, and in Palestine.

John Ruffold spent his last years living in Norwich with failing eyesight, but continuing a devout Salvationist.