you got an hour lunch break?? - no wonder they were makin more money than thou - they probably got no breaks!! mind you I bet their libidos were always well honed!:-p
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you got me thinkin there Jem which is a difficult task for many people - NO - not to get themselves thinkin but to get me thinkin.
My first āseriousā - [no it wasnāt really serious] girlfriend was a rather plumpish wench - no not fat just plump [I remember me granny buying goose for xmas {we couldnāt afford turkey} saying - I donāt want a fat bird just plumpish] that was she.
we went for country walks and cuddled and kissed but that was it - anything else was verbodden! and then there was the class difference - me definitely working class and her family upper class snobs. we all went to the same church so had to appear friendly and equal in the sight of God but it never was!
strangely enough I canāt even remember her name now. I was invited into the rather grand house they had with a conservatory on the top floor - I had never in my whole life seen a conservatory on the top floor!!
and then the new farming family arrived with a young buck son and the mother had plans for my girl - I was to be gentle eased out and he in. I think the end came when I arrived at the house knocked at the door and was met by my girls eldest sister - a kindly woman who tried to explain to me in very gentle tones that it was over. I arrived home that night heart broken - I think more about the way it ended than anything else but then stoically got on with the rest of my life.
If you only knew what we lasses had to go through to look half way decent for those Saturday dances.
Starching those many net underskirts we wore and then sugar spraying the carefully backcombed beehive till it was stiff. Your waspy belt had to be pulled really tight to show off your 18 inch waist whether you had an 18 inch waist or not.
Then the winkle pickers which you squeezed your feet into no matter that they hurt your crushed toes like hell and the very thought of any lad treading on your feet sent shudders of horror through you. If they were new they nearly always squeaked which sounded like you were far**** just as you were being led onto the dance floor by the lad you had fancied for agesā¦and he never asked you again.
I am not going into the horrors of those unreliable bra fasteners or the stocking suspenders that could fail at any moment but any lass will know exactly what I mean
OMG and I thought you lot just had a strange grimacing like grins when you courted!
my first dancing experiences was of course rock and roll at the local scout club barn!!
for some unfathomable reason my sister and I had started dancing at home for a bit of family fun and then it transfered to the scout hut - we were definitely the best on the floor but it never got me any girls!!
waltzes, foxtrots etc were square and came much later as we became grown up!!:-p
Ah yes but it was fun wasnāt it, many a tear has to fall but itās all in the game.
If the girls only knew what was going through the fellas minds trying to get up the courage to ask a girl up to dance, the prospect of a refusal was terrifying, the shame of it in front of all your mates, having to walk back across the floor empty handed with a face you could light a cigarette off. Nobody dare ask the real good lookers up, the odds were stacked against you there, so to be fairly safe you always aimed lower in the looks department.
Susie the Sausage Maker.
Beneath all the garb beat a heart made of gold
The faster it beat the more sausages they sold
She stashed all the dough in the bank we are told
To keep her in comfort when she got too old.
The Lake Isle Of Innisfree
I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnightās all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnetās wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heartās core.
*
W.B. Yeats.
Just thinking of my older brother today, not his anniversary or anything, talking about teenage dancing brought back many happy memories, we were very close. He always loved this poem and his eldest Son recited it at his graveside when he died from Leukemia 12 years ago in London. R.I.P. Tommy.
A very sad story Jem and a beautiful poem
Thanks Malcolm.
Tom Waits while Jeremy Irons;-)
Yes Solo, donāt forget John Wayne tomatoes.
Oliver Cromwell was a strange man, did you know he kept Warthogs for pets? I remember reading somewhere that he said to his portrait painter āPaint me as I am, Warthogs and allā as the little darlings gathered around his feet.
Surprising the things that jumble around in our brain. I remembered this little warthog poem
So we all know that when you have that itch, that annoying little tickle,
That makes you squirm, that makes you wriggle,
That sensation that you just canāt stand, that makes your day seem dull and bland.
It sometimes starts in your toes, it sometimes starts on your nose,
But what do you do, when itās a place you canāt get to?
You do what any sensible warthog would doā¦
You find the nearest stump, to scratch that voluptuous rump,
Remembering to ease in to it, so that you donāt overdo it.
Then there are those warthogs that seek the ultimate high, when they manage to scratch that itch on their inner thigh.
So next time you have a wiggle in your bum, donāt be glum,
Find a chum and have some fun.
***This warthog poem was created by the Zululand Rhino Reserve (South Africa) wildlife monitors ZoĆ« Luhdo, Michelle Swemmer and conservation volunteer Ann Bennet. The idea came to them after they found this amusing series of photographs that was captured by the reserveās camera traps.
Well Iāll be darned! as our American cousins used to say, who would think there could be a poem about a Warthog? and a smashinā one too, thanks for posting that little jewel Solo.
and in the same theme:
mud, mud glorious mud
nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
so follow me follow down to the hollw
and there we will wallow in glorious mud!
Not forgot Ollie
Apparently, many years ago there was one of these traveling exhibitions of strange and curious items. Amongst them were two human skulls, large and small, supposedly belonging to Oliver Cromwell. When asked by someone how there could be TWO skulls, the showman replied, āThe small one? Thatās his skull when he was a boy!ā.
I like that one solo.
My favourite āOllieā is buried over here in county Cork, Oliver Reed, what a character, a real man if ever there was one, God be good to him.
We had a lot of refugees come here over the years, the boat people from Vietnam and many fleeing the Hungarian revolution, and as time moved along they, just like the Normans, became more Irish than the Irish themselves, even as far back as the late 1700ās we had some refugees from the far east, quite a few Chinese. God forgive me but I still think itās comical to hear a Chinese person talking with a Dublin accent.
I came across this little piece in Mars Barrās great great grandfatherās diary. He used to have one of the most hated jobs in the country at that time, a senior rent collector for an absentee landlord. Note Iāve spelt āStrabaneā the traditional way and as the way itās pronounced āStrabanā
The grey brick house cast itās shadow across the narrow road
Blacking some cobblestones in itās shade as in through the gate I rode
No light came from the hall, I waited but no answer to my knock
Then a noise and a light on the stairs gave me a sudden shock
Door opens and what stood before me was a tower of a man
Desperate Dan McHugh the terror of Straban.
For over two years he hadnāt paid up the rent
Every time we sent someone to collect it he always said it was spent
All of our efforts were in vain and came to no use
With his shouting and swearing we got nothing but abuse
So they sent me to try and do whatever I can
But nothing could prepare me for the terror of Straban.
He grabbed me by the collar and pulled me inside the door
Kicked me in the town halls and I crumbled to the floor
He took a blackthorn from the stand and hit me on the head
Clamped me by the arms and legs and threw me on the bed
Iāll never forget the hiding I got that day, it wasnāt in my plan
I hope to Jaysus I never meet again, the terror of Straban. (Mars Barr)
Ahhh,yāsee,when faced with superior muscle and/or bulk,one should employ the āFlying Mongolian Chuff-Lockā;a hold which has brought untold numbers of huge be-muscled fighting men to order,as they beg for release from the indescribable agony of being bested by a move known and perfected only by really angry nuns and a few favoured followers of Saint Squishem.
Believe it or not Pug but I felt the wrath of angry nuns at infant school, hell hath no fury like an angry nun with a leather strap.
No lether strap fur me coz I wuz a gud kid in skule.
Only the boys got walloped Solo, because they were not made from sugar and spice and all things nice.
You mentioned canonise in another thread Gumbud.
The Girl with the Cannon Eyes (or Gumbuds first bird)
She was an exceptional beauty, more than you could realise
Everything was perfect about her bar her cannon eyes
He took her to the pictures and for long country walks
She was very keen on nature, and her eyes stuck out on stalks
She spoke good English with a slight Australian twang
And when she looked at Gumbud his heart let out a bang
She was a model, always ready to do some shooting
Posing came natural to her as she was born in Tooting
She was well paid for her work, in fact she was loaded
Until she had a row with Gumbud and the whole romance exploded.