Number 19, My Old Man's a Dustman

Tuesday 15th May 2012.

A pleasant drive in the country.  There is a road I use every day which takes my breath away at this time of year.  It passes through a beech forest.  The new leaves are the most incredible luminous pale green, and since it has been raining the trunks and branches are wet and appear black as the sun streams through.  The trees are huge and majestic, and the drive through them is simply wonderful.  I drove past lots of other beech trees but nowhere today was quite like that road from Milland to Hillbrow.  However, there is another stunning place; the colours are different, but still because of beech trees.  The A272 near Brockwood Park, just west of the Meon Hut is fabulous for its massive and magnificent copper beeches, interspersed with green ones, all bursting forth with new leafery.  If I were a proper poet I would have something to say about them.  As it is, I am just quietly in awe.

Number 19.

My Old Man’s a Dustman.

My old man’s a gamekeeper,
Though he’s not very keen on grouse;
He wears a ridiculous deerstalker,
And lives in an ordinary house.

My old man’s the Prime Minister,
He’s got political feet;
One of them’s left, the other one's right,
And he lives in Downing Street.

My old man’s a painter,
He drives a painter’s van;
He comes home splattered with paint,
And washes off what he can.

My old man’s a truck driver,
He’s always on the road;
One day when a gale blew up,
His trailer over-blowed.

My old man drives a coach,
But we all call it the bus;
He takes everyone to school each day,
And takes good care of us.

My old man’s retired,
He loves his golf and his beer;
He likes to wear tartan trousers,
But we don’t let him do it round here.

My old man’s a milliner,
And he's good at making wigs;
When he was still just learning,
He had to live in digs.

My old man’s a farmer,
He keeps pigs and cows;
He comes home really smelly sometimes,
Which causes quite a few rows.

My old man’s a copper,
Who goes out on the beat;
He likes to say ‘ello ‘ello ‘ello,
Rocking up and down on his feet.

My old man’s an environmental recycling operative,
He wears an environmental recycling operative's fluorescent coat;
He wears very similar trousers,
And lives in an old houseboat.

My old man’s a judge,
He wears a judge’s wig;
His trousers are eccentric,
But he doesn’t give a fig.

My old man’s asleep,
It looks quite like he’s dead;
He’s been a landlord all his life
And the beer tends to go to his head.

My old man’s the Prince of Wales,
He wants to wear the crown;
It looks like I might get there first
And that would get him down.

My old man’s a pilot,
He wears a pilot’s cap;
He got lost coming home one time,
Because he had the wrong map.

My old man digs ditches,
Using a JCB;
He wipes his hands on his ‘britches’,
Before he has his tea.

My old man’s a gardener,
He wears gardening gloves;
He works hard pulling up nettles,
'Cos gardening's what he loves.

My old man’s a chef,
He works at the local pub;
He wears chef’s grey check trousers,
And makes terrific grub.

My old man’s the Pope,
I can’t tell anyone;
It’s been my secret for much too long,
So the Vatican here I come!

My old man is dead,
He passed away in his sleep;
We put him in his Sunday best
And buried him six feet deep.

Me I’m trying to be a writer,
I wear a thinking cap;
Every now and then I take it off,
And give my forehead a slap!

© Stephen Saunders

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