written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Thursday 5 January 2012

Grannies and Plugholes

23:40:00 Posted by Lindsay 3 comments

Children. I have three of them and they provide me with stress and
laughter in equal measure. I write this with a 2 year old draped across me,
snoring and farting. They provide me
with endless entertainment. Children have a wicked sense of humour. I love telling them stories, reading to them
and singing daft rhymes. I sing to them a song my mum sang to me.

My baby has gone down the plug-hole
My baby has gone to the sea
My baby has gone down the plug-hole
Oh bring back my baby to me

They love that one, especially when I take the plug out of
the bath. They also like (and I do too)

Oh ye cannae shove yer grannae off a bus
No ye cannae shove yer grannie off a bus
No ye cannae shove yer grannie
Cos she’s yer mammie’s mammie
No ye cannae shove yer grannie off a bus.

I’ll leave out the next verse where it’s ok to shove yer dad’s
mammie off the bus. It might upset folk. But it’s ok, she doesn’t use the bus
so there’s no chance of my kids flinging pensioners from buses any time soon.
My mum sang these songs
to me, and they were sung to her as a child. We both sing them to my children
now, and they love them. The meaning has not faded; they are timeless. These
songs have passed through at least 3 generations of children now, purely
through memory. I’m fascinated by folk tales and rhymes in all their forms. I
love off the cuff tales and songs. I love the informal; the anecdote that
someone tells their friends over a few drinks, even though we know it’s hammed
up for effect. The ghost stories round a
camp fire. They are an experience, an interactive one we feel a part of. We
pass our family legends, our stories and our rhymes to our children, and they
in turn, take these onwards to their own children. Folk stories and songs are a
communication with no need for technology, paper, or text. I suppose it may be dying out as kids and
adults find other ways of entertainment and bonding. But a story, song, rhyme
or poem can bind generations. Unlike the pictures I plan to bring out for their
girlfriends. I have lots of those. Bwahaaahaaahaaa.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Snoring and farting. Life doesn't get much better than that.

Ashley Lister said...

I remember that first song.

And you're right to mention the oral tradition of passing on stories. It's an essential part of our culture and it's never going to be usurped by technology, no matter how advanced we become.

Great post,

Ash

Standard said...

I was about to comment but Ash got there first. I second his comment - rhymes and stories will never die out because they're one of the ways we start sharing our culture with our children (a DVD will never cut-it for me)

I recall a poem you posted a while ago, Lindsay, 'The Highwayman' that my mum read to me - I'd completely forgotten about it but mentioned it to her when she visited and got a recital from memory on the spot! Shared moments like that are the reason we'll never lose storytelling and rhyme - it creates a bond to the past through our parents that we never lose that we, in turn, pass on to our children - the great stories are like memes in this sense. Anyway rambling now - you got me thinking. Great post, have a happy day