Happy Birthday Pam Ayres !

Pam Ayres

Today is the birthday of an English poet, songwriter and presenter of radio and television programmes, Pam Ayres (born 14 March 1947).  Her 1975 appearance on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks led to a variety of appearances on TV and radio shows, a one woman touring stage show and performing before the Queen. Presenting some poems : Being Poet

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth,

And spotted the dangers beneath

All the toffees I chewed,

And the sweet sticky food.

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

I wish I’d been that much more willin’

When I had more tooth there than fillin’

To give up gobstoppers,

From respect to me choppers,

And to buy something else with me shillin’.

When I think of the lollies I licked

And the liquorice allsorts I picked,

Sherbet dabs, big and little,

All that hard peanut brittle,

My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My mother, she told me no end,

‘If you got a tooth, you got a friend.’

I was young then, and careless,

My toothbrush was hairless,

I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,

I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and-down brushin’

And pokin’ and fussin’

Didn’t seem worth the time – I could bite!

If I’d known I was paving the way

To cavities, caps and decay,

The murder of fillin’s,

Injections and drillin’s,

I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lie in the old dentist’s chair,

And I gaze up his nose in despair,

And his drill it do whine

In these molars of mine.

‘Two amalgam,’ he’ll say, ‘for in there.’

How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,

As they foamed in the waters beneath.

But now comes the reckonin’

It’s methey are beckonin’

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear

Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear.

And here’s the reason why.

So I can push you out of bed

When the baby starts to cry.

And if we hear a knocking

And it’s creepy and it’s late,

I hand you the torch you see,

And you investigate.

Yes I”ll marry you, my dear,

You may not apprehend it,

But when the tumble-drier goes

It’s you that has to mend it.

You have to face the neighbour

Should our labrador attack him,

And if a drunkard fondles me

It’s you that has to whack him.

Yes, I’ll marry you,

You’re virile and you’re lean,

My house is like a pigsty

You can help to keep it clean.

That sexy little dinner

Which you served by candlelight,

As I do chipolatas,

You can cook it every night!!!

It’s you who has to work the drill

And put up curtain track,

And when I’ve got PMT it’s you who gets the flak,

I do see great advantages,

But none of them for you,

And so before you see the light,

I DO, I DO, I DO!!

WOODLAND BURIAL

Don’t lay me in some gloomy churchyard shaded by a wall

Where the dust of ancient bones has spread a dryness over all,

Lay me in some leafy loam where, sheltered from the cold

Little seeds investigate and tender leaves unfold.

There kindly and affectionately, plant a native tree

To grow resplendent before God and hold some part of me.

The roots will not disturb me as they wend their peaceful way

To build the fine and bountiful, from closure and decay.

To seek their small requirements so that when their work is done

I’ll be tall and standing strongly in the beauty of the sun.

THEY SHOULD HAVE ASKED MY HUSBAND

You know this world is complicated, imperfect and oppressed

And it’s not hard to feel timid, apprehensive and depressed.

It seems that all around us tides of questions ebb and flow

And people want solutions but they don’t know where to go.

Opinions abound but who is wrong and who is right.

People need a prophet, a diffuser of the light.

Someone they can turn to as the crises rage and swirl.

Someone with the remedy, the wisdom, and the pearl.

Well . . . they should have asked my ‘usband, he’d have told’em then and there.

His thoughts on immigration, teenage mothers, Tony Blair,

The future of the monarchy, house prices in the south

The wait for hip replacements, BSE and foot and mouth.

Yes . . . they should have asked my husband he can sort out any mess

He can rejuvenate the railways he can cure the NHS

So any little niggle, anything you want to know

Just run it past my husband, wind him up and let him go.

Congestion on the motorways, free holidays for thugs

The damage to the ozone layer, refugees and drugs.

These may defeat the brain of any politician bloke

But present it to my husband and he’ll solve it at a stroke.

He’ll clarify the situation; he will make it crystal clear

You’ll feel the glazing of your eyeballs, and the bending of your ear.

Corruption at the top, he’s an authority on that

And the Mafia, Gadafia and Yasser Arafat.

Upon these areas he brings his intellect to shine

In a great compelling voice that’s twice as loud as yours or mine.

I often wonder what it must be like to be so strong,

Infallible, articulate, self-confident …… and wrong.

When it comes to tolerance – he hasn’t got a lot

Joyriders should be guillotined and muggers should be shot.

The sound of his own voice becomes like music to his ears

And he hasn’t got an inkling that he’s boring us to tears.

My friends don’t call so often, they have busy lives I know

But its not everyday you want to hear a windbag suck and blow.

Encyclopaedias, on them we never have to call

Why clutter up the bookshelf when my husband knows it all!