Club Song

By Claude E. Benson.

(Tune – “‘Tis a fine Hunting Day.”)
You can hear the tune by going to the British Library Archival Sound Recordings. Performed by a traditional singer from the Esk Valley, near Grosmont, North Yorkshire. Age about seventy at the time of the recording in March 1968.

What a fine rambling day,
‘Tis as balmy as May;
To the Meet all the Ramblers have come;
Every one will be there,
And all worries and care
Will be left far behind them at home.
See the axes and ropes in array,
The climbers their clinkers display;
Let us join the glad throng
That goes laughing along,
And all go a-rambling to-day!

Chorus –

We’ll all go a-rambling to-day,
All nature looks smiling and gay;
So we’ll join the glad throng
That goes laughing along,
And we’ll all go a-rambling to-day!

There’s our Ex-President,
If he said what he meant,
We should certainly none of us climb;
But that’s no earthly use,
For he climbs like the deuce
And has captained us time after time.
A ground where we climbers can play
He discovered for us in Norway,
And he’s tackled the Alps
And has bagged all their scalps,
Yet he still goes a-climbing to-day.

Chorus:- We’ll all go a-climbing to-day,&c.

We are Ramblers all,
Young and old, great and small;
And each one is a keen mountaineer;
But sometimes we go
To the regions below,
And that is the reason we’re here.
There’s a hole in the limestone they say,
Ending somewhere low down in Cathay,
“Old comrades! so long!”
“We will meet in Hong-Kong!”
For we’ll all go pot-holing to-day!

Chorus:- We’ll all go pot-holing to-day,&c.

Cricket, Football and “Goff,”
At such pastimes we scoff;
No possible pastime can cope
With our underground work,
Where the stalactites lurk,
And the cult of the axe and the rope.
So lads, let us hasten away!
Make the best of this jolly fine day!
O’er the crags and the hills,
Down the pots and the ghylls,
Let us all go a-rambling to-day!

Chorus:- We’ll all go a-rambling to-day,&c.