KEEPING, Charles (editor and illustrator). Cockney Ding Dong: A Song Book. London Kestrel Books/EMI Music Publishing.

4to.; publisher’s peach-coloured cloth lettered in gilt to spine, sunshine yellow endpapers, in pictorial dustwrapper by Keeping, with wrap-around design in colours; pp. [11], 12-190; illustrated throughout in profusion in both full colour and line; a near fine copy, without ownership marks or inscriptions, in a very clean and fresh, unclipped dustwrapper (£3.95) with some toning.

First edition, with musical notation for guitar and piano and full lyrics for each song.

Charles Keeping (1924-1988) was born and raised in Vauxhall, London, and where a Saturday night “ding dong”, grouping families around the piano, was a favourite pastime.  This volume is compiled of songs individually chosen by Keeping, drawn from the Edwardian music hall, the First World War trenches, the American dance hall and the East London streets and includes classics like “My Old Dutch” and “Knees Up Mother Brown”.