Billie Watts

Billie piped up and said

What's all this, this ain't right

I shan't kill my captors

 Willie Watts, Willie Watts

What a guy was Willie Watts!

Where's Watts gone for how long

I can't see him in Oakhill town

Willie Watts was a pipe maker

Blowing smoke

Into the air

But then that big old chimney

blew out his career

Willie turned to thieving

And stole though still believing

That he must survive

To keep on tryin' to follow the Lord's ear

Oh Willie Watts was put upon

A ship bound for Australia

He became Willie the Wizard of Oz

But that yellow bring road

Held many a twist and turn 

Leaving Halvis Grove /Hovis loaves

 Leaving Halvis Grove

Crossed the river Mersey

On the M56 road

Waved goodbye to Altrincham

So long Ryebank road

Onwards I go to Wilmslow

Following where the river flows

Down past Hoo Green

 Lifted my leg in Peover

At Knutsford I burst a tyre

Repaired it at Congleton

Where I danced the conga with a charleton

And at Newchapel sang in a choir 

Said all I had to say in Talke Talke pits

Ended up on the Keele road

Near the world of Wedgwood

It was a long way from there

But I finally made it home

Getting stuck in traffic queues beside the Avon

Leaving Halvis Grove

The house of warmth and love

Where a woman knows

And a man ungrows

In the garden

All they've been thinking of

Leaving Halvis Grove

It's another home from home

Where I can find my daily bread

Like in Hovis Loaves

Like in oaken groves

Down cattle droves

Where rows and rows

Of the apple tree grows

And bulls and bullocks frolicked in meadows

Long, long ago

Across the river Mersey

Tale of two woolly jumpers

 A man fell off a bridge, luckily a thread of his jumper got caught

on the railing and as he fell it broke his fall as it unravelled

What a marvel!

More marvellous than that was on the other side of the bridge

A sheep fell off and went splat

It just goes to show how sometimes it's better

To give away what you own

Than wear it yourself

Or else it was just a lucky woolly jumper

The man with the golden smile

 No he never gets his hands dirty

That just ain't his style

But if you ask him for a loan

He'll flash to you his grin that shows you his wile

For he is the man with the golden smile

Oh he operates in a place where they win or lose

Gambling in thousands makes his winnings ooze

Betting on the horses, over furlongs even miles

For he is the man with the golden smile

When he's losing, he spreads his winnings wide

Then they bring in their returns on the next tide

Coming back stronger, gaining interest all the while

For he is the man with the golden smile

Don't you know he's more powerful than a politician

Don't you know you'll never dent his well crafted mission

His image has been managed so carefully with great guile

For he is the man with the golden smile

Wednesday nights

 I mixed up my Wednesday night community hall classes

There was Kung foo and Weight watchers

I couldn't decide which to join

So I decided to combine them into the Kung Food Fighters

Where we deflect blows from parsnips

And other hard vegetables

The Nautical Strawberry

 Sea Shanty Shepton

Oh come to the Mendips

Where the rain drizzles down

And the cows are like seals who swim over the crown

Of the grass which swells

Like a giant tsunami to Wells

And the sheep are like dolphins skimming along

Ducking and diving singing whale song

The rabbits are the tuna leaping in the air

Badgers are the monkfish, Salmon are our hares

And we are the sailors fishing in these seas

Leas of green grasses, gardens of green peas

Bringing on our sea fruit, water raspberry

Marine cabbages and the nautical Strawberry

As we plough the paths with mattocks, 

As we scythe or strim the grass tussocks

We sing our sea shanty songs

To the moon and the sun

Oh I wish to be a real sailor hauling out to sea

But I'm in my tractor ploughing the brown lea

Oh our straits are real narrow, 

they are as wide a wheel barrow

And my moles do burrow furrows like twisting eels

And we have furlongs and leagues for our steeds

no 49th Parallel nor sea horses indeed

If you're looking for the Rock of Gibraltar

You could do no better than the Glastonbury tower

That sits like an island in the stream

Yet we still have our sea shanty dream

That we are battling spray jets

Hunting whales for bets

Porpoises and dolphins seen

Somewhere jumping over fields of green

You may see storms fronts rolling in

But we see hedges trapping us on the Mendips

As the shore is lapping thin

But we keep on a hopin'

There will be some ropin'

So we keep on haulin' in

For we may catch a whale

If you never try, you never fail

And if we keep tryin' we may eventually win

C'est Fin!

Something Fishy

 I smell something fishy

Down at the sea shanty

But I can't put my finger on it

Is it the wishy washy, dishy sloshy 

pantry?

Or is it the lack of a mast?

I think we're on dry land, Avast!

Put out me hearties

We'll sail passed Haskins

And up on over the ride

There's a strong wind at our tail 

 blowing filling our sails

Throw the jettison over the side

We need to lose weight

The hull she's a sinking

A listing over to one side

From when she hit a car at Tescos

Whooah there she blows!

A whale down the West Shepton rise

Flukes in the air at West Compton road

Fire me flares on the ridge

Harpoon the Right Whale turning left at the hospital

Let's moor up here for a smidge

They like their tonguing in Bowlish

They talk in tongues down in Darshill

In Longbridge many sailors are Polish

They swig rum from the bottle on Tipcote hill

Let's tack into the wind past the Viaduct

The Whale is towing us North

We've been sailors since before the empire sucked

The British sure had a good few ships put forth

And many a sailor came from the Mendips

Many from the coast of course

But they hew down the oak trees to build Galleons

And Spanish bulleons crossed the atlantic in force

Wooly jumpers from Shepton hit the high seas

And they were exported on fast clippers to India

Jumping woolies wished they were on board them

But they had to grow more wool on them first