'The Cocoa Song' Highvolume Play Pause Stop

Stanley Byers outside his home in Morecambe.

Top Walks at the Royal Albert, leading up to the Bandstand. It was around here that Stan and the others went camping in the 1950s.

Courtesy of Nigel Ingham

In Lancaster and Morecambe, in the late 1980s, men and women met and shared their experiences of years and years of living at the Royal Albert Hospital.

Included in their reminiscences, many of which were recorded on audio tape, were a number of songs composed while living in the institution.

Here you can hear Stan Byers singing the ‘Cocoa Song’. He says that this was sung by himself and fellow residents Arthur Ramden, Mick Heaton and Andy Warriner in 1958. They were camping in part of the hospital grounds, far from the main building.

Stan recalls singing this song in front of hospital staff and residents and the impact it had on the hospital hierarchy.

‘We had a concert at the Royal Albert and we sung it on the stage and two of the main persons walked out – that was Dr. Cunningham (Medical Superintendant) and Mrs. Wareing (Matron). When they heard that they didn’t stop any longer. They walked out.’

Transcript:

The Cocoa Song

(Audio 3 minutes 29 seconds)

The cocoa that they gave us, they say is mighty fine.

It’s good for cuts and bruises and tastes like iodine.