• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team
  • HI folks the server that hosts the site completely died including the Hdd's and backups.
    Luckily i create an offsite backup once a week! this has now been restored so we have lost a few days posts.
    im still fixing things at the moment so bear with me and im still working on all images 90% are fine the others im working on now
    we are now using a backup solution

Silly Rhymes.

db84124 said:
...... these are what I've always believed to be very similar to Edward Lear's ''runcible spoons" ... David
Click to expand...

David, I thought I was seeing a box of Australian Splayds, but I think Shortie's right: they are cake forks (I can remember having to polish ours when I was a child). Anyway, Splayds and cake forks are, like runcible spoons, cutlery that the great Edward Lear would have enjoyed!

[Incidentally, David, there was a thread started by Alf not long ago (I think it was called "An interesting one"), in which you and I half joked about Edward Thomas's wonderful poem "Adlestrop". I was looking for the thread yesterday and it seems to have completely disappeared! Or is it me?]
 
My mother and father used to say...

Ginger nut fell in the cut and frightened all the fishes
A fish came up and eat him up,
And that was the end of ginger nut.

I think this is a particularly Brummie/Black Country rhyme, and have only found a couple of people that have heard it.

Anyone heard? Best wishes Peter
 
My Mum used to say:

Adam and Eve and Pinch Me went down to the river to bathe
Adam and Eve got drowned'd.
Who do you think was saved?........

as we gave her the reply we ran away!
 
Pedrocut said:
My mother and father used to say...

Ginger nut fell in the cut and frightened all the fishes
A fish came up and eat him up,
And that was the end of gingernut
I think this is a particularly Brummie/Black Country rhyme, and have only found a couple of people that have heard it.

Anyone heard? Best wishes Peter
Click to expand...
We used to sing that to a boy in our class and then run,there was also a boy name George who had his own song.
Georgie porgie puddin and pie kissed the girls and made them cry,
when the boys came out to play Georgie porgie ran away
 
My dad used to sing this while bouncing me up and down on his knee - as the verse went on his bouncing got faster and faster

This is the way the ladies go - nim nim nim
This is the way the gentlemen go - trot trot trot
and this is the way the farmers go - gallopy gallopy gallopy

I also remember Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Rich Man, Poor Man, Vagabond, Thief.

He also used to recite this poem - no idea why

The moon is up
The stars are bright
The wind is fresh and free
We're out to seek for gold tonight
Across the silvery sea
Beyond the lights of far cathay
Beyond all mortal dreams
Beyond the realms of night and day
Our Eldarado Gleams
 
Jules65 said:
My dad used to sing this while bouncing me up and down on his knee - as the verse went on his bouncing got faster and faster

This is the way the ladies go - nim nim nim
This is the way the gentlemen go - trot trot trot
and this is the way the farmers go - gallopy gallopy gallopy

I also remember Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, Rich Man, Poor Man, Vagabond, Thief.

He also used to recite this poem - no idea why

The moon is up
The stars are bright
The wind is fresh and free
We're out to seek for gold tonight
Across the silvery sea
Beyond the lights of far cathay
Beyond all mortal dreams
Beyond the realms of night and day
Our Eldarado Gleams
Click to expand...

After reading the poem that your father recited, although I had never heard it, something seemed familiar. I Googled and found that the poem was written by Alfred Noyles see below for full version…

https://oldpoetry.com/opoem/35085-Alfred-Noyes-The-Moon-is-Up

The link for Noyes in Wikipedia is below, and I found that it was from his major work Drake, a 200-page epic in blank verse about the Elizabethan naval commander Sir Francis Drake, which was published in two volumes (1906 and 1908).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Noyes

Now the connection became clear. My mother died at the age of 91 and suffered from dementia, and although she could not remember what she had for tea, her long-term memory was excellent. She could still recite the poem Drake’s Drum by Henry Nebolt.

The poems are from the same era and they were made to recite them in class. It is quite likely that the poem had been drummed into your father!

Best wishes Peter
 
Mary had a little lamb its fleece was white and wispy.
Then it caught Foot and Mouth Disease and now it's black and crispy

Jack and Jil went into town to fetch some chips and sweeties.
He can't keep his heart rate down and she's got diabetes

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
The structure of the wall was incorrect, so he won a grand on Claims Direct
 
The Cabin Boys name was Ripper, he was a dirty young nipper. he put glass up his a--e and circumcised the Skipper!. (ouch!). Len.
 
Jules l remember that poem....except we sing it in music class at school along with a lot of other sea shanties.........Brenda
 
Pedrocut said:
My mother and father used to say...

Ginger nut fell in the cut and frightened all the fishes
A fish came up and eat him up,
And that was the end of ginger nut.

I think this is a particularly Brummie/Black Country rhyme, and have only found a couple of people that have heard it.

Anyone heard? Best wishes Peter
Click to expand...
I remember it, heard it & said it many times in life. Len.
 
Someone I know used to recite:
Wouldn't it be funny if
she had a wooden t*t
wouldn't it be strange?

And from more up to date children:
Postman Pat, Postman Pat
Postman Pat ran over his cat...
Blood and guts went fly-in'
Postman Pat was cry-in'
You've never seen a cat as flat as that!
 
Two Christmas carol parodies I remember from primary school days:

While shepherds washed their socks by night,
All seated round the sink,
The angel of the Lord came down
And said "Cor what a stink!"

We three kings of Orient are,
One in a taxi, one in a car,
One on a scooter bipping his hooter,
Going to Perry Barr.
 
Hi mariew and Fatfingers
Re.the "copper with his shirt hanging out" Seem to remember bits of the rhyme but not all.Perhaps the following might jog your memories though.
A flea jumped in the teapot and made a cup of tea
Mother gave a shout
The flea jumped out
and in came a copper with his shirt hanging out.
 
I have a lovely book by Iona and Peter Opie, entitled The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren (Oxford: OUP, 1959 and St Albans: Paladin, 1977), which contains numerous examples of "silly rhymes". The book is based on information supplied to the authors in the 1950s by some 5,000 children from all over the UK. Birmingham informants were from the Golden Hillock Road Primary School and the Acocks Green Junior Mixed School. Here is one of the Birmingham examples:
Mister Fatty Belly, how is your wife?
Very ill, very ill, up all night,
Can't eat a bit of fish
Nor a bit of liquorice.
O-U-T spells out and out you must go
With a jolly good clout upon your ear hole spout.​
 
Pembroke said:
Hi mariew and Fatfingers
Re.the "copper with his shirt hanging out" Seem to remember bits of the rhyme but not all.Perhaps the following might jog your memories though.
A flea jumped in the teapot and made a cup of tea
Mother gave a shout
The flea jumped out
and in came a copper with his shirt hanging out.
Click to expand...

Ha! Reminds me of this newspaper article!
 
Thylacine said:
Mister Fatty Belly, how is your wife?
Very ill, very ill, up all night,
Can't eat a bit of fish
Nor a bit of liquorice.
O-U-T spells out and out you must go
With a jolly good clout upon your ear hole spout.
Click to expand...

Which reminds me that when playing "picking by chanting" games, if the last word (therefore the person you picked) wasn't going to be your best choice, you added a few words to make the rhyme fit the number.
The real version of the rhyme would just end "O-U-T spells out!"
 
I remember that we had ryhmes to select team members for playground games at primary school. The trouble is I cannot remember any of them.
I am surprised but pleased this thread keeps on being resurrected.
 
Thanks for adding a bit more to the rhyme Pembroke but I still can't remember, I remember my mom saying it but I can only remember the end bit because it would make me and my brother laugh.
 
Arkrite said:
... trouble is I cannot remember any of them ...
Click to expand...

Arkrite, there's a whole world of childhood rhymes and games that is passed on from child to child, and largely forgotten by the time we reach adolescence. That's why it's such fun to be reminded of them, as in this excellent thread.

Here's another Birmingham one from the Opies' book:
Julius Caesar,
The Roman geezer,
Squashed his wife
With a lemon squeezer.​
 
Hi mariew and Fatfingers
I think after two days the following has eventually forced its way through the mist of old age
One two three mother caught a flea
Put it in the teapot to make a cup of tea
The flea jumped out
Mother gave a shout
and in came a copper with his shirt hanging out.

Pembroke
 
Another couple of Birmingham ones (from Opie & Opie):
Inky pinky, pen and inky,
I smell a dirty stinky.

If a fellow met a fellow
In a field of fitches,
Could a fellow tell a fellow
Where a fellow itches?
How many Fs in that?​
 
Arkrite said:
I remember that we had ryhmes to select team members for playground games at primary school. The trouble is I cannot remember any of them.
I am surprised but pleased this thread keeps on being resurrected.
Click to expand...
How about your shoes need blacking please change your foot,
 
An Opie "riddle" rhyme, this time from Ford, Shropshire (but a Birmingham version is known):
Little Nancy Netticoat
Wears a white petticoat.
The longer she lives
The shorter she grows:
Little Nancy Netticoat.​
 
There are a couple I can remember but not the full verses and I am sure someone will remember them.
1st one was about throwing seeds in the ground - one for the rook, one for the? and one for the ground that grew nothing at all. The 2nd was about 2 tom cats come knocking at the door. Please help
 
Re your second one: is this it, Carolynn? (Obtained by Googling the line you quoted):
Not last night but the night before,
Two Tom Cats came knocking at the door,
I went downstairs to let them in,
And they knocked me down with a rolling pin.​
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top