A song by Keith Marsden. This is a lament for the drovers who used to drive livestock to market. The railways came along and put them out of a job.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Drovers-2-300x185.jpg\")
A drover driving his livestock to market – early 19th century England.<\/p><\/div>\n
Oh I was a lad when I first saw the sight
\nThe gath’ring of beasts and men
\nThe cobs off the halter and dogs running free
\nFor the Drovers were on the road again.<\/p>\n
Oh the droving days are done,
\nAnd the drover’s way is run.
\nFor there’s railways laid and they’ve taken the trade,
\nAnd the droving days are done.<\/p>\n
We cursed down the valleys, we cursed up the hills,
\nWe stumbled through marsh, bog and fen,
\nEach year was the last but we knew in the spring,
\nThat the drovers were on the road again.<\/p>\n
We had the freedom of high moor and fell,
\nNo fences, nor walls bound us then,
\nThe meeting with old friends at farmstead or fair,
\nWhen the drovers were on the road again.<\/p>\n
But times are a’changing and farmers in greed,
\nHave cast out the proud drovin’ men.
\nOur children will starve lest we find other work,
\nAnd the drovers are on the road again.<\/p>\n
I’m old and there’s no place at hirings for me,
\nFor who wants the bent broken men?
\nI wish God would give back the days that we knew,
\nAnd the drovers were on the road again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A song by Keith Marsden. This is a lament for the drovers who used to drive livestock to market. The railways came along and put them out of a job. Oh I was a lad when I first saw the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88892,"featured_media":0,"parent":148,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1061","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1061","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/88892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1061"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1063,"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1061\/revisions\/1063"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cliffhaslam.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}