I thought you all might need a slight diversion from the red-heat (or should that be blue-heat) of the Clinton/Obama race.
Over the last week, here in the East of England, we have been expectantly following the saga of the Felixstowe bomb (of WW2 variety). Felixstowe is a resort and major container port on the east coast of England, about 50 miles north of the River Thames.
It was found by workmen repairing the sea defences on Tuesday and has been the subject of much local interest ever since, until that is the Royal Navy EOD specialists lost it in to a tidal stream after they had towed it out to sea. As of today they are still searching for it, with underwater robots etc, the full panoply of active mine hunting, for a bomb that was dropped 60 years ago and may be a very damp squib.
Last night my muse for extremely bad verse overcame me and the following is the result.
Ode to the Great Bomb of Felixstowe
Twas on a day in early spring
When workmen did a digger bring
To place some rocks upon the beach
So wild waves would not the houses reach
One man, with his digger grand
Hit something in the soggy sand
A stone, a bone or curly shell?
Oh damn a bomb, I´ll be blown to hell.
He called the cops, he called the fire
He called the vicar under the spire
He called the grocer, much use he be,
"Bain´t nothing green, no good to me"
The council did a zone decree
From yonder school to that big tree
Full five hundred yards upon the ground
Where no one could stay or roam around
All people did from the danger flee
That nestled in the sand by the sea
They went to friends, they went to kin
Some had to sleep a gym within
Then from a distant place in the south
A bode of tars in Portsmouth
There came a team of sailors bold
To make safe that black bomb black so old
The tars did ponder on the bomb
Who dropped it, where did it come from
Was it a Jerry, or maybe a Yank
Or did it fall from a returning Lanc
The sailors scanned the bomb outside
and watched it covered by the tide
"Alas, alack! We came to late
We will have to tackle it on another date"
Another day did dawn, bright and clear
The sailors came, the bomb did near
They attached a buoy with a rope
The plan was that the bomb would float
The bomb did float and was towed out to sea
Where the tars did address it ‘pon bended knee
Oh wondrous bomb, so bold and black
Do you a filling fearsome lack?
"Oh no!" they cried, "Alas, alack"
"The rope has parted, it’s come up slack"
The bomb had moved with the powerful tide
Where should they look, upon which side
Along the shore the people stood
Wondering when the tars would
The bomb explode, the waters part
And then they could in their chariots depart
They stood, and murmured in a crowd
Waiting for the bang, so bold and loud,
They held their cameras, with breath bated
From morn til night they patiently waited
Then came the news upon the air
The tars had lost that bomb so fair
They couldn’t find it, there’d be no bang
So the people left, no song they sang
In the light of another day,
The newsmen gathered to have their say
With cameras fine, through lenses long
They watched the boats and tars so strong
Alas, the bomb had moved some more
Some said it now may lie ashore
Some distance coastwise to the south
Even unto the Crouch the mouth
But no declared the sailors boss
This job is not a total loss
We know where it’s not, but not where it is
We will search and search, that’s our biz
Oh wondrous bomb of Felixstowe
Where you be, we do not know
Please come back! Please don’t go!
We need you, so we can see you blow!
With fullsome apologies to all poets even the author of the Great Tay Whale!