Peradventure due to Tawney's personal tradition of naval service, Tawney joined a Royal Navy at the age of 16, serving in submarines for 13 years. There he developed the womb-to-tomb interest around nautical music.

When however around the Navy in 1957, he performed in the Alan Lomax radio show broadcast in Christmas Day, "Sing Christmas." Shortly thenceforth in Easter Sunday, he appeared in television. It went swell, & presently he experienced the each week television spot & the networked indicate "Watch Aboard." Encouraged by these successes, he left the Navy early inside 1959 to be a good-whale office musician & broadcaster.

He continued to act inside broadcasting, & experienced the every week radio indicate, "Folkspin." Meanwhile, he researched traditional songs of south-west Engl& and 20th century naval songs. within the early Sixties constituted his have folk club in Plymouth where he met his wife Rosemary.

Additionally to researching traditional songs, he composed the total of his have in the call and response style of sea shanties. An lesson one, written after he was however in the Navy, is "Chicken on a Raft." A song makes informatiin to an unpopular dish served in the Royal Navy, consisting of fried egg on toast, known as "chicken on a raft." A chorus is when follows:

Chicken in the raft in the Monday morning,
Oh, what a terrible sight to look at,
Dabtoes forward & a dustmen abaft,
''Sittin' there the'pickin' at the chicken in the raft!''

Beginning inside 1972, Tawney exposed sociology at Lancaster University. When he graduated, he found an expert's degree from either Institute of Dialect and Folklife Studies.

Around 1987, Tawney's book Grey Funnel Lines: Traditional Song & Verse of the Royal Navy 1900 to 1970, was promulgated by Routledge.

Tawney's endure public performance was Easter 2004, at a Lancaster Maritime Festival. He died of the bacterial sickness fallowing an extended illness.

Songs
Two or three of the songs written by Cyril Tawney include: Cheering a Queen Chicken in the Raft Five-foot Flirt Grey Funnel Line Sally Loose & Easy Stanley a Rat The Tilt & Unwashed Tiffy The Lawsuit of Grey