Florrie Forde was one of Music Hall's greatest stars. She was born in Australia, but most of her career was spent in the British Isles and in particular for over 30 years she performed in the Isle of Man for the summer season. She became friends with my maternal grandparents and stood Godmother to my own mother when she was Christened in 1908.
Many of her well known songs reflect her association with this island such as Flannagan - Take Me To The Isle of Man Again; Kelly From The Isle of Man etc.
I came across this song, which seems to be a follow on from the latter, on a site called Culture Vannin and as it is one I had not heard of decided to give it a go myself. Unable to find the lyrics I tried to work them out from the recording, but was not able to hear everything accurately, so sought help from Mudcat.org and thanks to a contributor called Big J am now able to sing the song.
It also fits in somewhat with my recent theme of songs relating to WWI as I am sure this must have been written just after that war.
Having just completed the annotations, I realised that in the first chorus, I sang Onchan Head instead of Douglas Head. I got confused as the name changes in each chorus. So the annotations give the correct lyrics each time.
Thanks to Chloe and Breesha at Culture Vannin, I now know that the song was composed by John Neat with lyrics by John P Harrington and the actual title should be: Kelly, I'm Glad To See You Back.
