Edward Slow was born in Wilton in 1841 and from a humble start in life rose to become proud Mayor of Wilton in 1895. He was a coach builder and wheelwright, spring van, trap and waggon builder. He got into writing pretty much by accident after a local parson asked him to perform at a harvest home festival. From then on, his work always went down best when read aloud. As with the Dorset dialect poet William Barnes: it's amazing what a difference it can make hearing things read aloud with gusto and sensitivity instead of peering at pages of faithfully-rendered but outlandish-looking spelling. Slow: "Me fiather is a shepherd bwold / An lives on Zalsbry Plaain; / Vrim marn till nite he tends his sheep, / In wind, an starm, and rain; / Tho loanley be his humble lot, / He never do complain, / Var sweet contentment vills tha cot / Away on Zalsbry Plaain! / CHORUS: - O tha leetle roof cot, / Wur happiness da reign; / Of ael plazin in tha wordle gie I / Tha cot on Zalsbry Plaain!" Chandler notes: "Slow had an unquenchable talent to entertain his audience, and two of his themes - the shrewdness of apparently stupid country folk, and the mischievous mocking of an oppressive authority - were calculated always to provoke a sympathetic smile." Chandler's selection is made from Slow's 1903 magnum opus 'The Wiltshire moonraker's edition of west countrie rhymes', and it is a pleasure to be bringing his choices along to the Wilton that Slow adored.