Jan Stewer CD's

During the 1930's A. J. Coles wrote a number of short stories in the Devon Dialect, and these were collated as a series of books, using phonetic spelling to indicate the appropriate pronounciation. The books were written in the first person, with the character Jan Stewer as the narrator, recounting life and stories from the fictional parish of Muddlecombe, Devon.

John Sage has been given permisson by the Copyright holder to record these stories and sell the recordings to raise money for the maintenance of Luppitt Church. The stories (read in the Devon Dialect) were originally made available as cassette tapes, and sold locally in the Parish to raise money. The tape recordings were then copied to CD in 2004.

The CDs have now been de-hissed, digitally re-mastered, and duplicated by a professional recording company for re-release in January 2008. The CDs now have a screen printed surface and are packaged in a slimline Jewelcase containing a card insert with track listing on the inside and a printed cover. See below for an example.

The CDs are now available for purchase at £4 each, plus post and packing.

BBC local Radio and Television became interested in the CDs and Mr Sage's recordings shortly after the CDs were created. BBC News interviewed Mr Sage for the South West Spotlight evening news programme, and BBC Radio Devon had a morning focused on local Devon dialects, featuring an interview with Mr Sage. You can see and hear extracts from the TV interview and the BBC Radio interviews using the links below.

You can also hear extracts from the CDs. Try the .mp3 links first, as they are smaller and faster to download. If they don't work, the .wav files should work, but are larger, and will take longer to load. Please note the files may take several minutes to download and start in your media player (e.g. with a 56Kb modem, 1MB will take about 3 minutes). If the files stutter in your media player, select 'pause' until the file has fully downloaded. To save the file to your computer to listen to when offline, right click on the link and select 'save target as..'.

Note that the audio has been compressed from 44KHz (CD quality) to 8KHz (telephone quality) to reduce size, so the quality is not the same as on the CDs.

CD 3 - A Parcel of ol' Crams: Introduction (3min)                                    MP3 (1.3MB)   WAV (3.5MB)
CD 4 - A Parcel of ol' Crams: Breathing room only (extract; 2min)        MP3 (0.9MB)   WAV (2.5MB)
CD 4 - A Parcel of ol' Crams: Breathing room only (full story; 9min)     MP3 (4.4MB)   WAV file is too large

BBC Radio Devon news introduction.      MP3 (0.4MB)   
BBC Radio Devon - interview                  MP3 (1.5MB)   
BBC Television - Spotlight feature          AVI (9.7MB)   

There are 10 CDs available, containing a variety of stories taken from the following books: In Chimley Corner, A Parcel of ol' Crams, Ole Biskit, Yap, and On the Moor of a Night. The stories contained on each CD are listed below, with the story length in brackets. Two complilations are also available containing stories from the books that did not fit onto the original CDs:


CD No. 1 : In Chimley Corner
Introduction
Every man to his trade (17:21)
Jan's cricket match (12:49)
Song titles (00:50)
Jan and the census paper (13:39)
The lazy man (12:47)
Lumbago cured (06:21)
CD No. 2 : In Chimley Corner
Introduction
Stopping a tooth (11:13)
Squire Thorne's fire escape (15:38)
Jan's paperhanging (14:59)
First aid to the injured (12:10)
Our electric light scheme (10:37)
Higher education (07:00)

CD No. 3 : A Parcel of ol' Crams
Introduction
On the underground (10:20)
Jan at the hotel (11:56)
The ever opening door (10:26)
A man of invention (20:33)
When Jan went flying (17:23)
CD No. 4 : A Parcel of ol' Crams
Introduction
When Jan played football (11:11)
Have we lived before (11:48)
Speech on a church clock (10:34)
The council election (20:52)
Special licence (14:41)

CD No. 5 : Ole Biskit
Introduction
Jim Davey and the rabbit (12:55)
The seller sold (17:55)
Ned Hannaford keeps house (37:30)
CD No. 6 : Yap
Introduction
Ginger's fortune (21:24)
A peck o' cider (15:27)
The likeness taker (22:26)
Judgement (10:58)

CD No. 7 : Yap
Introduction
Lias in town (16:27)
precs of side 2 (00:52)
Jan plays golf (38:56)
Good resolutions (06:06)
Christmastide (02:32)
CD No. 8 : On the Moor of a Night
Introduction
Robbery in the parish (46:49)
continued- Robbery in the parish (24:13)

CD No. 9 : Compilation A
Jan's fiddle (09:44)
The hot water bottle (10:16)
Will Brewer and the boots (13:57)
The resolving staircase (09:15)
Breathing room only (09:08)
The lightning strike (20:07)
CD No. 10 : Compilation B
The song of the settle (04:24)
Twenty to one (13:08)
Mrs Snells ride (13:20)
The working model (27:49)
Jim Davey catches a crab (06:06)

Each CD is supplied in a slimline CD case, with the track listing on the inside of the card cover, and the CDs details on the front cover.
The CD itself is professionally duplicated with black lettering on a white CD surface.
If you would like to order any of these CDs, please click here to go to the ordering page.

Past orders for Jan Stewer CDs

The two maps below show where Jan Stewer CD orders have come from. Most orders are from the UK, but there have been some international orders as well. The markers are fairly accurate, but only show locations to the nearest town. You can scroll around the map by clicking and dragging on the map itself, and you can zoom in and out using the plus/minus buttons.

 

  © 2008 - P. Sage