How many miles to Durham town?
Two hundred plus two score and ten
Can Dom get there by candlelight?
Seems he thinks he can.
Will Boris look the other way?
Yes, they’ve got his back.
His heels are nimble
his toes are light
It won’t get him the sack.
Rules are meant for other folk
Rules aren’t meant for him
He can travel wherever he wants
You can’t see your gran.
Spread the virus seems he can
Up and back again
How many miles to Durham Town?
Two hundred plus two score and ten.
Ding dong bell
pussy isn’t well.
Who made her ill
track and trace to tell.
Ding dong bell
Pussy isn’t well
Where’s pussy been?
Who’s pussy seen?
She ate all the mice
in the farmer’s barn
Never did no one
any harm.
Now she’s not well
sad tale to tell
Who was the one?
Who passed it on?
Ding dong bell
Who made her ill.
Pussy isn’t well
Track and trace to tell.
The third update on my project to revisit nursery rhymes and popular stories for our Covid times. You can find the first and second updates here and here and there are links to rhymes you may have missed.
Mary went back to school and, inevitably her little lamb followed. Teacher didn’t appreciate having a lamb in class. It was quite difficult enough to enforce social distancing as it was without the distractions of a lamb in class.
In Humpty Dumpty territory there has been a rash of people falling off walls. Officials are worried by the rising numbers but the King has an easy solution. They should stop counting. It’s such an obvious answer it’s been adopted in other countries where they have either stopped testing or are not reporting numbers that make them look bad.
Old King Cole, merry as he usually is, is missing the company of his fiddlers and wants this to be over. His pipe and his bowl are all very well but somehow they don’t console him.
Poor Bo Peep feels like she has lost her youth, the best years of her life. She can’t get out and meet friends and stands no chance of romance or fulfilling her life ambitions. Hopefully, if she ‘leaves things alone’ , doesn’t dwell on how grim it all is, her dreams will come home ‘wagging their tails behind them.’
If you want to visit gran is a riff on the nursery rhyme ‘pop goes the weasel’ it points up the irony of having a little more freedom with relaxation of UK lockdown rules as long as you don’t plan on visiting an elderly relative. ‘Pop goes the weasel’ doesn’t make much sense but neither do the rules.
Four and Twenty Londoners baked in a pie is a Covid take on Sing a Song of Sixpence. The latest Government advice is to get back to work but avoid public transport. For many Londoners that’s contradictory advice leading to inevitable scenes of crowded tubes and trains crammed in like blackbirds into a pie. The perfect Petri dish to bake a virus in.
While the Old Folks die is a take on Kipling’s poem the Smugglers with it’s refrain ‘Watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by’. It highlights the plight of Care Homes and their elderly residents while the government have been focussed on hospitals.
Seems like you can ride a bike
Even drive a vehicle
But if you go and visit gran
Pop goes the weasel!
You can play a round of golf
Visit garden centres
But take the kids to see their gran
Pop goes the weasel!
See your friends out in the park
Only one not several
But leave your granny well alone
Or pop goes the weasel.
Fine for kids to go to school
Back to work for workers
You can have a cleaner round
But stay out granny’s garden.
Half a pound of tuppenny rice
Half a pound of treacle
That’s the way the money goes
Pop goes the weasel.
Little Bo Peep
has lost her youth
her best years
are confounded.
She’s all alone
stuck in at home
and can’t get out
to party.
How will love come
to one so alone?
She doesn’t know
where she’ll find it.
She’ll sit on her own
Call friends on her phone
But all of her dreams
are thwarted.
She’ll leave them alone
till better days come
and the bad days
will be well behind her.
Old King Cole
was a merry old soul
the lockdown didn’t suit him.
If this carries on,
thought the merry old soul
they might as well just shoot him.
He called for his pipe
he called for his bowl
but somehow
they didn’t console him.
Where are my fiddlers
fiddlers three
music, laughter dancing?
Strike up a fiddle
give me a song
brighten up my day.
How much longer will it be
that this thing still goes on?
I’d like to wake up
have the whole thing gone
and find it all a dream!
Any resemblance to recent events is unintended and purely coincidental.
Humpty Dumpty
fell off a wall
The King and his men
weren’t happy at all.
There’s too many falling
Too many ill
The numbers are rising
They’re going up still.
All the Kings horses
and all the Kings men
Couldn’t get numbers
To come down again.
There’s too many poorly
And flat on their back
It’s clearly a problem
We’ll just have to crack.
But the King said it’s simple
Here’s what we must do
Nothing gets done
If it’s left up to you.
The numbers keep rising
Because you will count
If you stop counting
The numbers won’t mount.
If Humpty’s still broken
We’ll just look away
If nobody sees
Then there’s nothing to say.
Mary had a little lamb
They said go back to school
She wasn’t sure if she’d be safe
But they had changed the rule.
Now everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go
He followed her to school that day
Though Mary didn’t know.
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school
But as for social distancing
To them it seemed too cruel.
They were so pleased to see their friends
They laughed and squealed with glee
A lamb in class made them forget
To do things differently.
‘It’s hard enough to keep kids safe,
the lamb should not be here!’
The angry teacher turned him out
But he still lingered near.
He waited patiently there bouts
for Mary to appear
She promised she would take him home
And made her anger clear.
“What makes the lamb love Mary so?”
The eager children cry;
“She understands the rules so well”
The teacher did reply.
The U.K. has experienced the highest number of Coronavirus deaths in Europe and a quarter of known coronavirus deaths in Great Britain have happened in care homes but there is still a view we should ‘back Boris’ and not ask awkward questions. It reminded me of Kipling’s poem ‘the Smugglers’ with its refrain, ‘Watch the wall my darling while the gentlemen go by.’
IF you wake at midnight, a’ sweating at the count
Please don’t blame our leader, should the death toll mount,
Them that don’t ask questions won’t be told a lie.
Back to sleep my darling, while the old folk die.
Don’t go asking questions,
Best stay in the dark –
There are daily briefings, questions no one asks
Clapping for the nurses; rules for you and I,
Bite your tongue my darling while the old folk die!
If you make comparisons and you chance to find
Evidence that’s mounting up and preying on your mind,
Don’t you shout to come and look, or use it for your play.
Carefully place a lid on it so all’s forgot next day.
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see an argument crudely brushed aside
If you see the minister’s cut about and tore;
If the questions are too tough – don’t you ask no more !
If you meet apologists sharing what they’ve read,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you ” pretty maid,” and chuck you ‘neath the chin,
Better you just back away and think of giving in.
If you see an empty bench – division lobbies dark –
If parliament behaves itself and house-dogs will not bark.
Sir Keir is there, but none to hear, so see how dumb they lie
They don’t fret or holler out when the old folks die !
‘If you do as you’ve been told, ‘maybe there’s a chance,
They will get you back to work, or picking fruit perchance,
You’ll get to see a relative or play a game of golf
They’ll let you have a cleaner in; but keep your granny out.
Five and twenty briefings,
Still we’re in the dark –
Swerve the awkward questions, silence awkward folk
Them that don’t ask questions isn’t told a lie –
Bite your tongue my darling while the old folks die!
Workers in U.K. have been advised to get back to work if they can’t work at home but to avoid public transport; contradictory advice if you live or work in a big city like London, so the result has been predictable, packed tubes and buses.
Sing a song of sixpence
Whose scared to die?
Four and twenty Londoners
Crammed in a Pie.
When the pie was opened
They all began to sing—
It’s the perfect petri dish
To catch a virus in.
The king is in his counting house
Disinfecting money,
The queen avoids the London bus
Though she needs some honey.
The maid is on the underground
Covering up her face
Along comes the virus
She’s another case.
Sing a song of sixpence,
Who wants to die?
Four and twenty Londoners
Baked in a pie.
When the pie is opened
They all begin to sing—
Isn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the king?
Andrew Green's Poems 