About
Who were the Bal Maidens?
They were the young women who worked at the mines in Cornwall and Devon- bal being Cornish for mine. There have been records going way back to medieval times of these remarkable women but my fictional bal maiden, Merryn is from the 1840s.
These women were feisty, strong, determined and independent. Usually aged between 10 years and 21 they were working before they got married and settled down to have families.
Even though they did not earn very much at all, they were able to contribute to family finances which gave them a sense of pride in their work. They loved to dress up too on their days off and spend their hard earned cash on ribbons, collars, bows etc to make their dresses as fashionable as possible.
Photo by Marylou Delaney
Photo by Marylou Delaney
The bal maidens always worked at the grass, that is to say never down in the mine shafts with the miners. (This was considered unlucky) Their job was to crush the ore from the boulders and large rocks that came up from the mines into smaller and smaller pieces using different tools, hence cobbing, spalling and riddlng : these were some of the strenuous and physically exhausting jobs the bal maidens did. As such we have named our newly formed theatre company Cobb Riddle and Spall Music Theatre to remember and honour their important work and also be inspired by their example to create new and exciting theatre!
As time passed into the 20th century the substitution of machinery for human labour caused the disappearance of the bal maiden.
‘Their disappearance has robbed the surface of the Cornish mine of one of its most picturesque and characteristic features; and never again… will the sound of them going by singing at six o’clock in the summer mornings be heard in the mining areas’
A K Hamilton Jenkin, The Cornish Miner
Why was Bal Maiden Musical written?
Lucetta conceived the idea years ago when she went on a family trip to Geevor mine and having previously known very little about mining in Cornwall she became a fan! Another trip to Botallack also fired her imagination when her children and herself watched as tin ore (cassiterite ) heated up and turned into tin – like magic! And she heard the expression ‘cry of tin’ for the first time: you can bend tin as it is quite malleable and it crackles or ‘cries’ as you bend it. Brilliant.
The first song Lucetta wrote for the musical was The Miner’s song. This arose out of music making with her son’s Year 3 Primary school class when they were learning about mining in Cornwall. The Bal Maiden song was inspired by Cornish band Dalla and their arrangement of the Cornish traditional Bal Maiden Chant. The Mor Song was written for a music theatre project for children at Mabe Primary School.
There were two elements that Lucetta loved most about the Bal Maidens; firstly that they sang together when they worked and she imagines that this helped them get through their very long, tough and hard working days. And secondly they loved to dress up on their days off and from what Lucetta has read about these wonderful women, it sounds like they had a lot of fun in the process.
Parklive: Photo by Simon Neild – Studio – 35