The Oggy Man

Cyril Tawney (1930 – 2005)

I first started to sing and play guitar as a young lad at a pub in Devonport in Plymouth which Cyril hosted in the late 1960's.
I have always said that whatever I have done since owes it to his songs and singing and I still sing his songs to this day as many others have done.

I have been asked before about the 'oggy man' and what an oggy is.
The song was written by Cyril - longest performing singer in the country, incidentally, who sadly passed away in Exeter in 2005.





His song the oggy man is, as all Cyril's songs, straight to the heart whether in pathos or humour. This is an exquisite gem of a song.
It helps if you know the background to the song . . . . . .

Before the war (WWII) in the old days, you could buy oggies at many places in Plymouth, but sailors coming back to the Dockyard last thing at night were most likely to get them from the man who sold them from a box outside the Albert Gate.

Before the war the Oggie Man had no competition, simply because there was no room for any. The Blitz, however, cleared a space right opposite his pitch, and in the late Forties first one, then two or three, caravan snack bars appeared on this bomb site, selling a variety of snacks, not just oggies. It was only a matter of time before the Oggie Man, as such, disappeared, either to retire from business or to get his own caravan and join the others. In the song, this change has taken place while the sailor has been away.

Picture a dark evening in the rain outside an old Dockyard gate in Devonport Plymouth . . . .

and slowly sing . . . . .

Oggy Man

Well the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more
I can't hear him calling like I used to before

I came through the gateway and I heard the sergeant say
The big boys are coming, see their stand across the way

Yes the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more

It was there that she told me when she bade me good bye
There's no one will miss you one half as much as I

My love will endure, dear,like a beacon in the squall
Eternal as the oggy man beneath the dockyard wall

Well the rain's softly falling and the oggy man's no more

Beautiful isn't it?

Cyril's wife Rosemary keeps the official site where you can learn about the man, other songs and buy recordings - do yourself a favour and do that.
http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/cyriltawney/enter.htm

You get oggys - or pasties as they are more often known nowadays all over the world where ever Cornish people went. They were often taken by tin miners because they were easy to handle and contained a meal in one. What is a real oggy - and how do you make it - there's another blog and some risky territory.