Charlie Seaman (1884-1965 ) and Bertie Seaman (1887-1974)
These two brothers were part of a very musical family, best known for their accordion playing prowess in the 1950s.
In his 1977 book, Sing, Say or Pay! Keith Summers published many memories of the Seaman brothers. Charlie’s younger son George (1910-1982) remembered his father playing the dulcimer:
‘I remember when we were kids Dad’d come back from the pub and get his dulcimer out and play – we used to have to sit as quiet as mice. Then mother would take us up to bed and take the oil lamp out and leave him playing in the dark – Queen Mary’s Waltz, Jack the Lad. He could play with two or four cane sticks at once – three strings on each post.’
Both brothers had been brought up in the north Suffolk village of Walpole, which was full of large families who intermarried, and in fact they married two sisters.
Charlie (Charles Edward) Seaman married Georgeanna Lugo and went on to live in Sibton and then Darsham. He worked on farms until at least his fifties.
He was known mostly for his playing on the accordion (melodeon) in local pubs – the dulcimer is not such a portable instrument as the accordion, for which he was clearly in demand in many local pubs! Although his brother Ernie was probably the better known accordion player, people often said that Charlie was the better musician.
His son Fred again:
‘When Charlie was a young man, before he got married, he’d take his music [i.e. his accordion – local terminology] down to the Butcher’s Arms (Bruisyard) or Yoxford Griffin and spend a week there straight off, playing in the pub. He got his food and beer for nothing and they’d put him up and he reckoned he was better off than at work ‘cos he was only getting 12/6d a week at that time. He worked for the same farmer for over 53 years – mainly he drove a thrashing tackle, pulled by horses, but he could do anything on a farm – stack, thrash, binding, clipping sheep, working with cows, horses, the lot. He was 6 foot 2 inches, weighed about 14 stone and was as strong as an ox.’
Bertie (Bertie Christopher) Seaman married Elizabeth Matilda Lugo in 1915, at which time he was serving in the army and based in Lincolnshire. He had started out life as all his brothers did, working on farms in the Walpole area, and after he was demobbed he continued in this occupation, working at Sibton Abbey farm, although by 1939 he was working as a heavy labourer for the council.
His nephew Fred (Charlie’s oldest son, 1908-1981) recalled Bertie’s musical talents and detailed those of his other uncles and aunts too:
‘My father Charlie Seaman had four brothers and three sisters and all of them except one sister could play an instrument. Dad played accordeon and dulcimer, Ernie played accordeon, Stanley played a wooden flute, Jack played concertina and accordeon but he died young, and Bertie played dulcimer and a bit on the violin. Yet it’s funny, I don’t know where they picked it up from. Their father didn’t play – he was blinded in the South African War.’
Tom Goddard, one of the regular singers in the Eel’s Foot pub in Eastbridge recalled the family from the period around 1920:
‘When they lived at Walpole they used to come down the Eel’s Foot a fair bit and they’d play until the pub turned out and walk back home over the marshes, and they’d all play as they went along and it sounded lovely in the quiet of the night.’
They knocked about with several other musicians including Charlie Philpot, a renowned dulcimer player from Yoxford.
Nothing more is known about the actual dulcimer/s played by the brothers, and unfortunately it doesn’t seems as if any recordings were ever made of any of the family.
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