A limerick a week #103

TopGran vs the POTUS

A short verse* inspired by the family’s nonogenarian Geordie matriarch who has crossed both the Atlantic and the American continent to holiday in California (with a cautionary note to their President given her penchant for challenging gabshite Americans to a fight).

Howay man, I’m gannin awaw
To the distant American shore,
And I’ll gan proper radgie,
Wi’ that tangerine gadgie. 
Whey aye , man; I’ll give him ‘what for’!

TopGran and her wingmen! (Pic courtesy of the Joneses.)

best read while effecting a Geordie accent. 

Quotes that made me laugh #49

When I was a kid my dad used to take me to watch Kendal United play football. That was because a doctor had told my folks that, as an ill child, I needed lots of fresh air.

I was probably about six when I came home after one game and asked mum “How old do you have to be before you can swear?”. Her reply was “You’re never old enough!” and that was when I ratted on him: “But daddy swore today!”. (I think he’d said ‘bloody’ – serious stuff, eh?)

Karma came back and bit me on the a**e many years later when I momentarily forgot The Tall Child was in the car when, in complete exasperation at the antics of a lorry driver, I less-than-silently mouthed “Oh, for f**k’s sake!”. It didn’t take long before I was ratted-out in turn when we returned home: “Mum! Dad said the F word!”.

And that is why I laughed out loud when I read the BTL comments that followed the online Graun’s review of Harlequins’ poor showing in rugby’s Aviva Premiership this year. It’s the last line that made me chuckle …

A limerick a week #85

33,000 not out!

The Matriarch was 90 at Christmas, but we couldn’t all make her ‘do’ in Baden Baden, so we arranged a get-together at Whinfell Center Parcs to celebrate her 33,000 days-old anniversary on 29 April.

And thus the Aberdeen branch of the family got together with her over the weekend along with her Geordie relatives. The lodge we stayed in came with a chalk board and chalks. Here’s the results…

Actually, the party was swell!

Her birthday meal was booked for 8.30, but she mis-remembered and thought it was for 6.30. Fortunately we all got there at the right time, but not before it inspired this rhyme (based on an original idea of The Tall Child). The rubbing-out and inserted text demonstrate something of the limerick writer’s thought processes…

And here is the group photo (sadly missing the cousin who took the pic) with the family surrounding its Matriarch in the centre…

A limerick a week #81

Pogonophobia? It’s infantile!

Firstborn had her nose put out of joint last year when we were together in a café and a baby at another table kept smiling at me and not her. After last week I now know how she felt because it was then, along with the tall child, that she was the focus of my one year old great-niece’s attention when the best that I got from our extended family’s latest arrival was a look of sheer puzzlement.

Even that was a temporary blip; a minor departure from the infant’s contemplative looks that opined “What is that? Can I trust it? Hmm, I’d better steer clear of it!“. The consensus view was that the little one was a wee bit uncertain about a bloke-with-a-beard (okay, very uncertain!).

My own dear mother once looked at me and said that she saw a wolf’s head, so perhaps my beard and the little one’s upbringing in the shadow of Germany’s Black Forest psychically brought to mind the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, and with it a fear of all things lupine. Who knows? But it was kind of cute, if a little demoralising, to a clearly not-so-great-uncle.

Meantime, Management suggested the experience could inspire the next ALAW, so here goes:

There once was a baby that sneered
When her bristly great-uncle appeared.
Which led him to infer
That she seemed to prefer
Her playmates to have less of a beard.

Postscript: According to the Massive Phobia website it’s a real thing:

“Pogonophobia (po-go-no-fo-be-ah) is the irrational and persistent fear of beards. Its opposite is Pogonophilia, a love of beards or bearded persons.

While beards are often viewed as a sign of ruggedness or manliness, they are also sometimes associated with illness, misfortune, homelessness, etc., leading fearful individuals to think of bearded men that way.

The root word ‘pogono’ is Greek meaning ‘beard’ and the word ‘phobia’ comes from the Greek word ‘phóbos’ meaning ‘fear.'”

A limerick a week #68

Words spoken, but not quite in jest

A recent Graun review of Jon Richardson’s comedy and our own escalating plans for a kitchen renovation came into conjunction this week.

Richardson’s comedy is often based on his obsessive-compulsive disorder. He hypothesizes two types of people: Putters and Leavers. Putters, as the name suggests, put away things that are left out (compulsively in Richardson’s case) and Leavers are, of course,  the folk that leave things hanging around until a Putter comes along.

Richardson’s partner, the comedian Lucy Beaumont, is a Leaver and this conflicts with him domestically and is where a lot of his comedy arises. In our family we reverse the rôles, with me the Leaver and Management the Putter (Me: “Where’s my [insert any item that was left lying around]?” She:I moved it!“).

Meanwhile, on the kitchen front, our plans include provision for a dog bed in the utility room, and this reflects our continuing conversation about getting a dog when I retire, which is where things crossover into Richardson’s world of Putters and Leavers. Discussions about how a dog would fit into the reshaping of our kitchen moved on to it being trained properly and that made me think: Is it possible to train a Leaver to be a Putter and vice versa?

I speculated that to avoid domestic disharmony, I could try to train Management to be a Leaver or she could try to train me as a Putter. In fact, it would be quite funny if we both tried successfully to train the other and managed to reverse our rôles. Her response was cutting: “Just you train the dog and leave me to train you!

I know my place!

A puppy’s most likely to chew
A slipper, a sock or a shoe
But as you are slovenly
 I’ll tell you (quite lovingly)
“You train the dog; I’ll train you!”

A limerick a week #67

Veni. Vidi. Vinum! I came. I saw. I drank!

My sister has a labrador retriever called Benjo. I was mulling this over the other day as I am 18 months into a two-and-a-half-year conversation with Management whether we should get a dog when I retire.

Labradors (retrievers or otherwise), spaniels (springer or cocker), trail hounds (a Cumbrian speciality), beagles and border collies have all come under consideration and a collie is now favourite.

We saw one, a real character, at the local rehoming centre the other week; an eight-year-old called Sam. Sadly I was still too far off retirement to try for him, but we were pleased to see that he didn’t have to wait long to be rehomed by someone else.

So what have dogs got to do with the header for this post? Well, Firstborn returned from my mother’s 90th birthday celebration with this pic of my sister laying into some wine …

Run out of rosé? Easy – just try equal parts of red and white!

… which, firstly, inspired this week’s ALAW:

An artist of sorts she just shrugs
When told to use glasses not mugs
“I’ve got the capacity
To drink with rapacity”
She said as she showed off her jugs!

and then it made me think. She shouldn’t have a labrador retriever. What she really needs is …

… a Bordeaux collie!

A limerick a week #66

Happy birthday (tomorrow), mum!

A few lines of verse in appreciation of nonagenarian matriarchs …

We have fathers and sisters and brothers,
Uncles and aunties and others
But now mine has reached ninety
We think it’s a mighty
Good thing we’ve especially got mothers!

Grandma K who is 90 years old tomorrow (or 1,079 months or 4,696 weeks or 32,872 days). On 29 April 2018, she will be exactly 33,000 days old!

The eleventh of the eleventh plus one

The time of his life (addendum)

Following on from the previous post, I was intrigued by HWS’ Soldier’s Pay Book for use on Active Service. The details of his daily pay on commencement of active service are illustrated below:

The pay book also includes a couple of pages that allowed the soldier to record a short form of will, presumably for individuals that had not drawn up a traditional last will and testament. HWS had completed the relevant page, but in writing that was so small that it was difficult to decipher (hence the delay in posting it here).

In fact, HWS had not written a will in his pay book. The text he had included comprised a poem: The Steel of the D.L.I   A Tale of the White Gurkhas (author unknown to me) that had appeared in the Westminster Gazette in tribute to another of the DLI Battalions, the 2nd. Here it is in HWS’ hand writing:

A record of the poem can be found online in the Durham County Record Office:

(This image comprises one from a slide show Life and Death as a Soldier in the First World War (slide 22 of 27) produced by the Durham Records Office.)

HWS was not a warmonger, in fact I knew him as a peaceable, good-humoured gentleman who, like many, simply served his country in two world wars. I suspect he copied the poem into his pay book not in any glorification of the victory at Hooge, but to pay tribute to the courage of his colleagues in the DLI (and their fallen) in battles throughout the war.

I have transcribed the slide show image below (anyone paying close attention will see that HWS chose the spelling ‘enquire’ over the archived document’s spelling of ‘inquire’ – that’s my kind of pedantry – and, as in the Records Office version, the last verse appears to be the intentional concatenation of what otherwise appears to be two verses).

How the D.L.I. Fight
Magnificent Endurance and Spirit at Hooge

A tribute to the fighting qualities of the 2nd Battalion Durham Light Infantry is paid by a poem published in last night’s Westminster Gazette under the title “The Steel of the D.L.I.: A Tale of the White Gurkhas”. The following summary of the exploit prefaces the verses, which we take the liberty of reproducing. The 2nd Battalion Durham L.I. are known at the front as the White Gurkhas. At Hooge in the early part of August, as part of the Sixth Division, the D.L.I. had to attack a part of the German trenches. At dawn they lay in front of our trenches when the artillery lifted on to the German third line. One of our mines was exploded. The D.L.I.s were in and at them. Some sixty men held the crater for three days. They went in to section as a battalion and came out under 200 strong when relieved. When they marched out their bugle band met them in the communications trench and played them out under shell fire. As they went to the huts at Poperinge the troops lined the road and cheered them.

The Steel of the D.L.I.     A Tale of the White Gurkhas

Just ask them down at Armentieres,
At Arras, at Neuve Chapelle,
Inquire of the Germans at Ypres and Hooge
Inquire down below in Hell,
And ask where the shrapnel bursts and screams
And the whiz-bangs crack and fly –
You’ll find the Germans don’t forget
The steel of the D.L.I.;
Yes, especially well you’ll find in hell,
They remember the D.L.I.

But Hooge was the show where we got to grips,
And they didn’t have all the laugh,
We taught them some tricks in bayonet play,
And we showed them that two can strafe;
And we went all out and we went right thro;
And we hustled some off the map,
And we got us back just a bit cut-up
From out of that blood-red scrap,
Yet we mustered then barely seven-score men
At the end of that bloody scrap.

The night that followed we got relieved,
God knows we had earned a spell;
But we swore to show them just what we thought
Of their perishing shot and shell.
So we marched right out from before their lines,
What was left of us, grimed and sore,
And we swung away with our bugle band,
Playing us out before
Let them blaze and slam, not a farthing damn
Cared we more than we cared before.

We marched right out for them all to see,
To strafe if they thought they could;
To show them they never could get us beat,
That we’d come again strong and good,
And the band in front played us right away,
Like a pukka band we went.
And we marched away to the huts and sleep,
The sleep of the well-nigh spent.
So ask them down at Armentieres,
At Arras and Neuve Chapelle,
Inquire of those left of the men we met,
At Hooge, where we gave them hell,
Inquire of the dead that our bayonets left
To rot neath the August sky;
You’ll find that the foe has not forgot,
The steel of the D.L.I.,
And especially well you’ll find in hell,
They remember the D.L.I.

Postscript: More can be read about HWS’ battalion on the Durham at War website.

The eleventh of the eleventh


The time of his life …

The watch:

The “Erismus”. An open-face, top-wind pocket watch sold by Collingwood & Son Ltd of Hartlepool.

The movement:

An unsigned Swiss-made 17 jewel movement

The case:

Dennison Watch Case Company ‘Star’ model. Nine carat rolled gold on brass (guaranteed durable for 10 years).

The history:

The owner’s self-inscribed details: HWS Aug 30 1914 7 DLI

This antique pocket watch is worth about £30. It is at least 103 years old as that is when my great uncle inscribed it.

Here’s part of his story:

Harold Whidby Speight (b. 30 Aug 1893) seems to have inscribed the watch on his 21st birthday in August 1914 – perhaps it was his parents’ gift to him.

Having signed-up with the army reserve 22 months earlier, August 1914 comprised the month not only of his 21st birthday, but also that of his mobilisation with D company of the 7th Durham Light Infantry. In April 1915, he embarked for Belgium as a sergeant with the 50th Northumbrian Division, arriving just in time for the second battle of Ypres (with neither gas mask nor steel helmet). He earned three shillings (15 pence) a day of which two shillings was remitted to his parents in Sunderland, leaving him with one shilling a day for any local expenses at the front.

On 30 September 1915 he was sent to recce the enemy positions along with another sergeant.  On reaching the German wire they made their observations and dropped off some copies of ‘John Bull’ before returning to their own front line. (‘John Bull’ was a popular English magazine of the time with its circulation in 1914 estimated to have been in excess of 750,000.)

Later, when looking over a parapet to show an officer where they had been, he was shot by a sniper. The bullet entered his right cheek and exited behind his left ear. After being hospitalised in France and England he joined the reserve battalion until being demobbed in early 1919.

(The wound left him half deaf with a slightly palsied face and permanently weeping eye.)

Twenty-five years later, in March 1944 the Royal Navy called for volunteers to man small craft in support of the D-Day invasion and so, in July 1944, he found himself serving in the Second World War, this time as a deck hand on an armed diesel trawler carrying shells and depth charges to the fleet as they returned from Normandy for more ammunition.

In civvy street, having joined the Sunderland office of the Institute of Weights and Measures in 1909, he qualified as an inspector in 1919 after demobilisation from the army and joined the Newcastle office, becoming chief inspector in 1936. He retired in 1953 as a Fellow of the Institute having also been its Chair for two years during the Second World War.

Thereafter he moved to Kendal where he volunteered for the local Red Cross in 1954, helping out into the 1970s. He also painted in watercolour, wrote poems, corresponded worldwide with other Esperanto enthusiasts, and cycled everywhere on an original Moulton F-frame bike. He even spent two months on holiday in Australia in 1977 at the grand old age of 84 (but without his bike).

While still getting over his injuries and the trauma he experienced during the First World War, he took a long sea voyage, working his passage to and from South America. During that trip he visited Peru and the hot and steamy port of Guayaquil in neighbouring Ecuador which, many years later, I visited a number of times in a professional capacity. I wonder what he thought of it – I hated the place – but compared to the trenches it must have felt like an oasis of calm to him!

HWS in 1961 – a dapper chap!