This is for my friend Pauline.

Allan Francis Smethurst (November 19, 1927 – December 23, 2000), aka The Singing Postman was an English postman and singer.

Born in Bury, Lancashire, (where incidentally, I was born), the son of Allan and Gladys Mabel (nee Curson), Smethurst was raised in Sheringham, Norfolk. His mother came from the nearby village of Stiffkey. He later moved away from Norfolk.

A real life postman, Smethurst hummed tunes on his daily post round for many years, writing and singing songs in his native Norfolk dialect in the 1950s. An audition tape sent to BBC Norfolk Radio earned him a spot on Ralph Tuck’s local radio show, and Tuck recorded Smethurst on his own record label, “The Smallest Recording Organisation in the World” based in Lowestoft. A four track EP made the EP charts in 1965 and after another EP release by Ralph Tuck and an album The Singing Postman’s Year he was signed to EMI who re-released earlier songs and recorded new items. He made numerous live and promotional performances, including Top of the Pops but was afflicted by nerves and stage fright.

In 1966, the Singing Postman’s best known hit “Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy?” won Smethurst the Ivor Novello Award for best novelty song of the year. The hit knocked the Beatles from the top of the East Anglia hit parade and remained in the charts for nine weeks. Rolf Harris recorded a cover version without success. The song had a small comeback in 1994 when it was featured on a television commercial for Ovaltine.

He quit the music business in 1970, later admitting he had an alcohol problem and that he’d spent all his money and was penniless. He spent his last few years living quietly in a Salvation Army hostel in Grimsby where he died in December 2000.

Words to “HEV YEW GOTTA LOIGHT, BOY?”

I have seen a lot of attempts to produce the lyrics in a Norfolk dialect.
However, I believe that many are interpreting Allen’s pronounced lisp as a heavy dialect, when in fact, his accent is not pronounced at all.
I have therefore ‘cleaned’ up the lyrics and checked against the recording to produce a more manageable version. (Roger).

I had a gal, a very nice gal, down in Wroxham way
She were whooly nice to me in the ole school days.
She would smile all the while, but Daddy didn’t know all
What she used to say to me behind the garden wall.
Have you got a light, boy? Have you got a light,

Then one day, she went away, I don’t see her no more,
Till by chance, I see her down along the Mundesley shore.
She was there, twice as fair, would she now be true?
So when she see me passing by she say ‘I’m glad that’s you,
Have you got a light, boy? Have you got a light?’

Molly Windley, she smoked like a chimley,
But she’s my little nicotine gal.

Now you’ll see her and me never more to part,
We would wander hand in hand together in the dark.
Then one night I held her tight in the ole back yard,
But when I tried to hold her close, she say ‘Now hold you hard!
Have you got a light, boy? Have you got a light?

Molly Windley, she smoked like a chimley,
But she’s my little nicotine gal.

By and by we decide on the wedding day,
So we toddle off to catch to hear the preacher say:
‘Do you now, take this vow, to honour all the time?’
Afore I had the chance to stop her, she begin to pine:
Have you got a light, boy? Have you got a light?

Molly Windley, she smoked like a chimley,
But she’s my little nicotine gal.

Now the doctor tell me a Daddy I will be,
So when I ask him ‘What’s the score?’ he say ‘There’s only three’
So, here I go, cheerio, to see how she do fare,
I know what she will say to me as soon as I get there:
Have you got a light, boy? Have you got a light?