Coulter's Candy
Chorus
Ally bally, ally bally bee
Sittin on yer mammy’s knee
Greetin for a wee bawbee
Tae buy some Coulter’s Candy.
Willie wept baith lang and sair
Till he got a penny tae share
Noo he’s tumblin doon the stair
Tae buy some Coulter’s Candy.
Poor wee Annie was greetin tae
What could poor auld Mammy dae?
But gie them a penny atween them twae
Tae buy mair Coulter’s Candy.
Oor wee Jeannie wis lookin affa thin
A rickle o banes covered ower wi skin
Noo she’s gettin a wee double chin
Sookin Coulter’s Candy.
Here comes Coulter doon the street
The man the bairns aa like tae meet
His big black bag it hauds a treat
It’s full o Coulter’s Candy.
Additional verse
Mammy, gie’s ma thriftie doon
Here’s auld Coulter comin roond
He’s got a basket on his croon
Singin and sellin candy
A ‘thriftie’ was a child’s money box.
In the 1870s Robert Coultart, a mill worker in Galashiels, made aniseed-flavoured toffee in his house, and sold it around all the fairs and markets in the Borders. He played his whistle and made up his song to call the children to buy his sweets.
There are many old and new verses to the song. One of them says he wore a ‘big lum hat’, another that he carried a basket on his head.
But a man called John A. Anderson who saw him wrote, ‘He wore a tam a shanter or was it a Balmoral bonnet? With a pheasant’s feather sticking straight up from a buckle above his ear. A shiny black bag slung over his shoulder held stock of the famous candy!’ The candy was a hard toffee flavoured with aniseed.
For the full story of Robert Coultart and his candy see the book Doh Ray Me When Ah Wis Wee, 2007.
