The Doffing Mistress - Anne Briggs cover - Traditional Folk Song

This weaving mill song was sung by Anne Briggs with Ray Fisher joining in on chorus on the theme album The Iron Muse: A Panorama of Industrial Folk Music. This recording was also included in her two compilations Classic Anne Briggs and A Collection.

The Doffing Mistress is originally an Ulster song which Anne Briggs used to sing in the 1960. She said that "doffers" were the women who took the finished cloth from off the machines for the next stage in its production. It was work that was largely done bent double, which explains the line "she hangs her coat on the highest pin." The Doffing Mistress was the supervisor, and, in consequence, never did the job itself. The upshot of this was that she could stand up straight, something which doffers, bent double as they were all their working lives, found difficult to do.

A.L. Lloyd wrote in the original album's sleeve notes:
"Perhaps because the words are at once good-natured to fellow-workers and cheeky to the master, The Doffing Mistress has a firm hold on the imagination of young mill girls. It seems to have originated in the linen-mills of Northern Ireland but has since spread to textile workers elsewhere. The form easily allows for improvised words and many local verses are attached to the tune. A "doffer" is a worker who takes the full bobbins off the spinning machines.
The Doffing Mistress oversaw the young factory girls in the spinning sheds as the changed (doffed) the bobbins, ready to be sent to the weavers. The revolution in technology brought with it new songs that reflected a different world from the pastoral songs of an earlier time and have a vibrant energy and positive outlook in this case, that we do not usually associate with factories."

Lyrics - Anne Briggs' version:

Oh do you know her or do you not
This new doffing mistress we have got?
Elsie Thompson it is her name
And she helps her doffers at every frame.

Chorus (after each verse):
Fol de ri fol ra
Fol de ri fol ray

And Monday morning when she comes in
She hangs her coat on the highest pin.
Turns around just to greet her friends,
Crying, "Hi, doffers, tie up your ends!"

Some times the boss he looks in the door,
"Tie your ends up, doffers," he will roar.
Tie our ends up we surely do,
For Elsie Thompson but not for you.

(Repeat first verse)

Maddy Prior and June Tabor recorded Doffin' Mistress in 1976 for their album Silly Sisters; Martin Carthy played guitar on this track, Nic Jones fiddle, Andy Irvine mandolin and Danny Thompson bass. Another Maddy Prior and June Tabor recording - live from their 1999 Christmas tour - is on the CD and DVD Ballads and Candles. The latter album's notes said:

Martin Carthy sang this song on Brass Monkey's fourth album Going & Staying and live in studio in July 2006 for the DVD Guitar Maestros. He commented in the Brass Monkey's album sleeve notes:

The Doffing Mistress was also recorded by Frankie Armstrong on the album And the Music Plays So Grand and it was sung by Norman Kennedy.

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