False information

In my version it was "on" not through.

I'm also confused and I also thought it was about Manchester ship canal !

Indigo8

The version in the part of London where I grew up was:

The big ship sails down
The illy alley oh etc.
On the first day of September

Where is all this leading? What has this to do with false information? Why did I join this thread?

In the part of London (east) I came from it was the on the alley alley o. Not sure what this thread is about either or why I commented on it. [confused}

Wasn't the song the theme tune to a 'kitchen sink' film of the 60s? A TasteOf Honey, maybe?

I Certainly can’t prove it but the rhythm - whilst good for clapping ir skipping would also work for pulling on ropes so it might well have started life as a sea shanty !

Doodledog

Wasn't the song the theme tune to a 'kitchen sink' film of the 60s? A TasteOf Honey, maybe?

Yes, sung by children in Salford in the film.

The theme tune was 'A Taste of Honey'

Just to add to the confusion. I was told the 'alley, alley oh' was the Thames and the big ships were Dutch raiders in the 17th century which had to be fought off! That did actually happen.

Whatever the origin … this skipping rhyme has been around for decades… maybe for over a Century or more. Ding Dong Bell comes from 1580! The Manchester Ship Canal was completed in the late 1800s. The Titanic sank in 1912… so when did this rhyme first appear?
Most nursery rhymes have their origins back in history, some as far back as and many we used to sing/ chant are horrible, some involving killing, but we still chanted them as they were cemented in tradition and we really didn’t think about what they said/ meant!
I used to sing the Alley AlleyO in the 1940s in Gloucester … others talk about it being from the North or in London, or all over the UK … there are a lot of suggestions as to what it means or where it came from, obviously a lot were formed in different locations and related to the local naval events going on at the time.
Basically none of this is ‘false’… it’s all suppositions that have grown into local ‘folk-lore’. As a child you believe what you are told… the answer is NO ONE knows… until someone spots it in an old book or some archive perhaps?

* some as far back as the 1400s!

Being from Liverpool we sang this song and clapped in the street. We just thought it was about all the trade ships in Liverpool docks.
We called the walk ways in between and behind streets in Everton where we lived jiggers.

I remember The Big Ship sailed from the primary school playground in the 1950s - in the south of England, nowhere near the Manchester Ship Canal. I think that people formed a line, in pairs, and the pair at the end skipped down the middle and took their places at the end, and so on.

Most nursery rhymes have their origins back in history

Ring a ring a roses was about the bubonic plague. The roses referred to the rash, the ponies to the flowers carried to ward off the smells.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary may have been about Queen Mary I, Bloody Mary.

ponies Posies - thanks autocorrect!

' Land of Counterpane' yes it reminds me of days in bed at home with tonsillitis, measles, mumps although I didn't have toy soldiers.

missdeke

Indigo8

The version in the part of London where I grew up was:

The big ship sails down
The illy alley oh etc.
On the first day of September

Where is all this leading? What has this to do with false information? Why did I join this thread?

In the part of London (east) I came from it was the on the alley alley o. Not sure what this thread is about either or why I commented on it. [confused}

I grew up in Bow, London E3 during the 1950s.
Still confused

Still confused
We sang it in the Midlands.

Just sing along! 😁