Wednesday 12 April 2017

WE DON'T DO THINGS LIKE THAT II



As the original 'We Don't Do Things Like That' was performed around the area over the years, the opportunity arose to write additional verses in honour of other local towns. In 1993 I was invited to give a talk to the Alsager Writers' Circle on the subject of 'The Art Of Humorous Verse'. This special additional  verse for 'WDDTLT' was first performed on May 10th of that year in the town's famed 'little tin hut' near The Linley. One problem, of course, was that nothing rhymes with Alsager. Or does it? Well of course it does...

And it's been many years since Henry's Auntie Wyn who lived in sin
With Mr Binns above that pub near Radway Green
Was hauled before the magistrate for chucking bricks at Mrs Tate
(and Mr Johnson, when he tried to intervene),
And she was playing merry hell because they bunged her in a cell
For hitting P.C. Simpson with a cricket bat.
She'd have been all right, I'll wager, slightly further from Alsager;
Here in Middlewich We Don't Do Things Like That.

And five years on from that, we ran a special 'Poetry & Pints' night at The Black Lion in Nantwich. On July 23rd 1998, the following was unleashed on an unsuspecting Nantwich:

There's been ructions down in Nantwich, so they say, that Mrs May*
Who looks a bit like Princess Margaret with a squint
Was seen last Thursday in The Crown, making eyes at young Tom Brown,
And she's forty years his senior, daft old bint;
Talk of mutton dressed as lamb! But she doesn't give a damn,
Even though she's sixty-odd and run to fat.
Nantwich goes its own sweet way, my dear, and all I've got to say is here
In Middlewich We Don't Do Things Like That'.

© Dave Roberts/Salt Town Productions 2011


*This was written many years before the unmitigated disaster which is Prime Minister  Theresa May was visited on Britain. The name is pure coincidence. The description of Mrs May, which comes uncannily close, is also a coincidence.

Originally published on THE ODD EXCEPTION 3rd September 2011

1 comment:

  1. Enjoyed the additional verses Dave and it was great to see the original again 🙂

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