31/12/24 - The Derby Tup

The Derby Tup is a traditional Derbyshire agricultural folk song, performed at Christmas. It tells the story of a farmer, his wife (Our Owd Lass), their son and a giant tup - the ram used for breeding. The sheep's reared, sheared and eventually butchered.

We hear from a group of performers who've kept this old "mumming play" tradition alive. Matthew Headley Stoppard is a Leeds-based folk poet who performs it every year with his wife and sons.

Its exact date of origin is unknown, but it was performed regularly throughout the 1800s in North East Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, an area that was, and still is, hugely reliant on sheep farming. Originally children would visit remote farmhouses and ask for pocket money. It later became a regular Christmas fixture at pubs and working men’s clubs

Local folklorist Richard Bradley explains the origins of the play and its link with the cultural significance and history of sheep farming. While sheep farmers Andrew Beresford and Siobhan Lucas, of Pinfold Farm on the Derbyshire-Nottinghamshire border, offer their insight as modern day sheep farmers in the area and memories of their own festive traditions.

Farming Today was produced and presented by Nina Pullman.