CHORUS:
They come from many miles aroond on Grab a Granny Neet
From the country and the toons on Grab a Granny Neet
As long as you’re not fussy, and ye divvent have two left feet
You can hardly fail to score on Grab a Granny Neet

Today is friday once agyen, the best day of the week
Aa’ll have a wesh an’ have a shave when aa get hyem toneet
Aa’ll put on my best claes, tie an’ collar too
Then it’s off to the high pit club before there is a queue, cos….

CHORUS

Aa meet me mates in the bar, where the pints gan doon
And when we’ve had a canny few we’re off to the concert room
The cover charge is fifty ‘p’, ye pays it at the door,
Then eye up aal the talent that is dancin’ on the floor, cos…

A lass wearing tinted specs me mate got up to waltz
Torned oot she was cross eyed, and aal hor teeth were false
And aa was left with hor friend she said hor name was peg
Wey aa couldn’t get hor up to dance cos she had a wooden leg, yes…

And when they play the smoochy tunes there’s thoosands on the floor
If you havven’t done so wey noo’s the time to score
Then it’s ootside an’ in the car, you’ll be soon in gear
Then call in for a take away to soak up all the beer, yes…

New 5th verse & chorus added recently
Well that was many years ago in the nineteen seventies
There’s been a lot of changes in the twenty first century
The High Pit Club has been knocked doon, replaced with a block of flats
But I still remember the days when the concert room was packed

CHORUS
When they came from many miles around on Grab a Granny Neet
From the country and the toons on Grab a Granny Neet
As long as you weren’t fussy and you didn’t have two left fee
You could hardly fail to score on Grab a Granny Neet

From The Mitford Family album ‘Grab a Granny Neet’ (MM02)
Credits: Julia Mitford, Flute; Pamela Mitford, Fiddle; Wilf Mitford, Guitar & Vocals

One of the things Wilf is fantastic at with his songwriting is humour.  It’s always been there.  In fact when I’ve finished documenting his folk songs, I might eventually move onto his pop songs like ‘Bottle of Tomato Sauce’ which has a cracking punch line.  Grab a Granny neet was a song which always raised an eyebrow and got a good chuckle from a crowd.  If we’d sang a few sad songs Dad at a concert Dad would throw this in to lighten the mood.  It was a real hit with international audiences who couldn’t quite believe that Grab a Granny Neet was a real thing.

Would you believe it if I said it was all a true story – not just the Grab a Granny part, but also the unfortunate descriptions of the ladies encountered. Dad always says the best stories are the ones you couldn’t invent yourself!

In my home town of Cramlington there was a well known social club called the High Pit Club.  Sadly the club has been replaced by a block of flats as Wilf’s new verse describes after it closed in 2005.  It was a typical suburban social club with a concert room for large social events, in its’ day drawing large crowds for some of the best entertainers in the ‘the biz’.  I remember as a child going to see Big Daddy & Giant Haystacks wrestle there, and I don’t think I can mention on here who I went to see in my late teens – it was when the club was sadly in decline.  But yes, there was also a time when they hosted ‘Grab a Granny Neet’.

The rest as they say is history…. well it is now that it’s in a song!  It does also warrant a mention in ‘The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English’.