Great Men in English History

The immortal J. M. Blunt was not only the finest unicyclist of his day, but also the most meticulous collector of traditional rural ballads, work-shanties and miscellaneous folk songs ever known in western civilization. His monumental work, "Folke Songes of Olde Englande" is without doubt the most comprehensive of its kind, and was the lifetime's work of this great man.

   Blunt spent over seventy years of his life unicycling from place to place, plying local characters with drink and cajoling them into "singing the old songs", noting them down as they were performed. In return, he would demonstrate his daring skill on the unicycle by undertaking such feats as leaping over a coach and horses by means of a ramp, or sometimes over a burning haystack if the local brew was of sufficient quality.

    He was born the son of a taddle maker in Cleckheaton, Yorkshire in 1807, and showed an early interest in music, becoming a proficient spoons player by the age of 3, and winning numerous local competitions throughout his youth. At the age of ten, it is said he was accosted in the street by a somewhat inebriated local character, and was subjected to a loud and tuneless rendition of the little known song "A Taddler's Daughter Did Coddle my Plums", which was to determine the course of the rest of his life.

  Realising that such cultural gems could so easily be lost forever, the young Jeremiah scurried home and in his haste to record the song before he forgot it, wrote it on the family's prized harmonium with a piece of coal, earning him the broken nose which he sported for the rest of his life. Close scrutiny of the only known photograph of Blunt (above) will confirm this story.

   It was this experience which was to inspire him soon after to set off on his unicycle with his notebook and the rusty old taddling iron bequeathed to him by his grandfather, never to return to his native Cleckheaton. For years he made a meagre living from making roughly hewn taddles for cash at the side of the road, and thus financing his real mission in life which was to preserve and record the rich but ever endangered English heritage and culture for future generations, whilst shunning as much as possible the concept of sobriety.

   Later in life, when the demand for hand-made taddles in rural areas had dwindled to nothing, his spreading fame as a stunt unicyclist went before him, and this alone proved adequately lucrative to fund his vocational passions, particularly when he hit upon the idea of incorporating his musical skills into his repertoire, and in 1886, at the age of 79, became the first man ever to leap two burning ploughs on a unicycle whilst playing an unrecognizable rendition of "Ye Taddler's Jigge" on the spoons.

   It was this feat which brought him to the attention of the well known eccentric philanthropist and inventor of the tortoise Lord Percy Fitzwellyn, who in fact owned the ploughs which had been set on fire, and who was later to finance the publication of "The Folke Songes of Olde Englande".

   After the incredible feat was performed, the staggering Blunt was thrown in a cart by two of Fitzwellyn's gamekeepers who witnessed the event, and taken to nearby Sodde Hall, the family's stately home in Derbyshire. Expecting a flogging, and fuelled by copious amounts of dubious ale in conjunction with an in-bred hatred of the aristocracy, it is reputed that upon meeting his Lordship, Blunt was inspired to urinate over Lady Fitzwellyn's much pampered pet chihuahuas, an act made even less diplomatic by the fact that they were at the time on Lady Fitzwellyn's lap.

   From this moment on, the two men became firm friends as, unbeknownst to Blunt, the only thing Fitzwellyn detested more than chihuahuas was his wife Euphemia, whose foul manner and hideous ugliness are legendary, and was once described by Lord Isaac Huntinge-Sodde, the disgraced 28th Earl of Brampton, as "Not fit to empty one's bowels upon".

   Blunt's bizarre way of life appealed to the eccentric Fitzwellyn, whose patronage he enjoyed for the rest of his days. It was during this period that he contracted the syphillis that was to be his eventual demise. At his own request, he was buried in Brampton with his unicycle and his long treasured taddling iron. Only fifty copies of "The Folke Songs of Olde Englande" were ever printed, and most of those have inexplicably disappeared, though it is fairly obvious that at least one was used as source material by unscrupulous charlatans, who rewrote many of the original words and subsequently claimed credit for collecting the songs themselves.