The B.B.C. Dance Orchestra
Directed by Henry Hall

5.15 Daventry
The Children's Hour
Songs by Stuart Hibberd
' The Strange Story of the Dancing Cow', by Pern Fay , told by Barbara
'Swan Upping', by R. H. Turk
(Swan Herdsman)
It makes a pretty picture on a summer morning - six boats leaving the Vintry Wharf at Southwark, with banners flying; the men of two boats in scarlet and white, of two in green and white, and of two in blue. All that colour against the greyness of the wharves.
What are they doing? Where are they going? Why are they dressed like that?
It all belongs to history, and Mr. R.H. Turk, whose family belongs to history, too, is to tell you all about it this afternoon. How the swans are Royal. How the male swan is a cob, and the female a pen (a quill was a swan's feather), and a flock of swans a 'game'. How the swans on the Thames are the largest and tamest of all the swans, how they can break your arm with their wings all the same, how they are caught and marked, and how many a swan gives a man a ducking.
Swan Upping is the name given to the ceremony of catching and marking the swans. 'Swan up' is called when a brood is sighted, and the boats close it in. The men are called 'Uppers'. The watermen from whom they are recruited salute the King's Swan Keeper - one of Mr. Turk's brothers - with 'Up oars', and cheer his Majesty the King under the walls of Windsor Castle. Mr. Turk himself is 'Swan Herdsman' or swan marker to the Vintners' Company. One of his duties was to catch up all the swans on Henley Reach before the Regatta.