Last Night in Truro
  • songsheet
  • concert
  • clarinet in Bb
  • alto sax

click the link to download a PDF file

Charlie Hearnshaw
A song about a trip in a small boat from Truro on the river Fal to Dartmouth. Available in English and French.  

Last Night in Truro

Clouds have lifted
The sun shines
Rain has stopped now
We’ve been waiting far too long
The winds dropped
The tides fair
We’ve been tied up in a creek
We cast off

Pulling away from the quay under sail
Its nice to move again
Two weeks in Truro, trapped there by the storms
Its great to move again

Out on the river the birds are swimming
And walking on the mud
Searching for lugworm and fish
Swimming and poking in the mud

Passing by Tesco, the barge and the crane
We leave them all astern
Round Sunny Corner, the houseboats and projects
We leave them all astern

In the deep water we start to relax
Our problems are all in the past
Trees on the far banks are holding the sun
We’re having spontaneous fun.

Follow the channel and don’t cut the corners
Or we will run aground
Red buoys to starboard and green buoys to port
Or we will run aground

Ships that are moored in the Fal
Wait for their orders to leave here - they may not!
Rust and their rusty old chains hold them fast
Waiting to leave here - they may rot!

We have St. Antony Head on our port bow
The tide is going our way
Trolling for mackerel and poaching them fresh
We’ll hook some more for tea

Lounging about on the land
Sees us quite keen to see the sea.
Swanning about on the sea
Lets us appreciate the land.

On the sea
In the sun
In the wind
Its good fun

On our port quarter Start Point is receding
We glide by Skerries Bank
Hallsands then Beesands and Slaptons abeam when
We sight the Homestone Buoy

Into the mouth of The Dart
Riding the last half hour of flood
Upstream the anchor dives down
Streaming ten feet to find the mud

On the sea
In the sun
In the wind
It good fun

© 2000 Charlie Hearnshaw


The song is on Sailing By CD, Hearnshaw/Green Duo