Random Ramblings: Polly's favourite rhymes

As I may have mentioned before, I grew up in a very small village in Worcestershire. There were residents that had always lived either in the village or fairly near by and had lovely melodic dialects. Others had travelled from various places and quite a few of those had grown up in Birmingham and so had a sing-song accent that made them into what was called ‘Brummies.’ This meant that youngsters such as myself used a variety of dialects and word pronunciation became a jumble of village and town.

For instance a flowering bush that everyone called lie-l’c (lilac) was pronounced lie-luck by many of the youngsters (others would say lie-lock or even lie-lurk) – we were always told that it obtained its name because it was a lucky plant and the luck lay with it, or luck lies when it is taken into the home. Perhaps it is the only hard wood that country folk actually take in the house as many believe that no woody plants should be cut and placed in a vase because it releases bad luck from the ground and into the home when displayed indoors. A superstition, of course, along with the many others that people worry about.

Here is a little verse that I wrote as a youngster about the lilac bush:

Luck lies beneath the lie-luck tree
That’s where you stole a kiss from me;
The lie-luck sealed it in your heart
Which meant that we would never part!

“My mother said,
I never should ..
Play with the Gypsies
In the wood; ƸӜƷ
If I did, she would say,
Naughty little girl to disobey.
Your hair shan't curl,
Your shoes shan't shine,
You gypsy girl,
You shan't be mine.
And my father said
If I did,
He'd rap my head
With the teapot lid.
The wood was dark,
The grass was green, ƸӜƷ
In came Sally
With a tambourine. ೋ
I went to sea -
No ship to get across,
So I paid ten shillings (shillings pronounced shillins)
For a blind white horse, (horse pronounced hoss)
I up on his back,
And was off in a crack -
Sally, tell my mother
I never shall come back.”
Anon

When I was a little girl my favourite pastime was skipping. Sometimes it would be with a skipping rope and sometimes it would be without. My mother was forever telling me to stop as I would hold her hand and skip alongside of her as we walked up the very long lane to what was known as the corner shop.

My mother would tell me mainly the first part of this particular skipping rhyme and if I stayed outside the corner shop which meant I could climb in the very old Yew tree, she would wag her finger and say very firmly - ‘now don’t you go talking to any strangers.’ Talking to strangers or going off with strangers was the very worst thing any child could do and it was every parent’s worst fear!

“Are you listening Polly?”