Hells bells! Our Devil-may-care John has done it again, with yet another fiendishly good entry. No other spherians (I think) join him; one has to be careful saying things like that, with so many pseudonyms around.
Many congratulations, John. (It must be nice to make a habit out of winning 
)
Next comp on new thread called 'Missed Appointment'.
ON THE ROAD
by Tessa Castro
IN COMPETITION NO 141 you were invited to write a Song of the Road to the tune of your choice. Oddly, the most popular tune was that of ‘Yesterday’, which doesn’t provide any special advantage that I can see. Other tunes sometimes made the words jauntier than they would otherwise seem. Frank McDonald put his ‘We’re on the Road to Chaos’ to the tune of ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’. Shirley Wadhams’s line ‘Bollards, bollards, what a lot of bollards’ benefitted from the lilt of Stawberry Fair’.
I couldn’t remember how ‘Tumbling Tumbleweeds’, composed in the 1930s by Bob Nolan, went, so I found it on YouTube sung by his own Sons of the Pioneers, as Michael Heber-Percy suggested. That was an unexpected benefit from an altogether cheering bundle of entries. Commiserations to those mentioned, and congratulations to those printed below, each of whom wins £25, with the bonus prize of a welcome road’s-end Taylor’s of Harrogate tea and cake set going to the diabolical John Whitworth.
[Tune: ‘My Way’]
My primrose path from God,
I have to own, looked none too clever.
That Sanctimonious Sod
Said I was down and out for ever.
My prayer was, from the start
To walk that final end-is-nigh way,
And swear, with all my heart,
I did it my way.
Father, Son and Holy Ghost
And all the Hosts of Holy Terror
Supposed that I was toast
But, mark my words, they were in error.
Mankind (how could they lose?) –
His was their live-and-never-die way –
Still blindly sought to choose,
And did it my way.
John Whitworth
[Tune: ‘O God, Our Help in Ages Past’]
Our Scottish highland roads weren’t tarred
Until I reached my teens,
And, though to drive was very hard,
We shared our bonny scenes
With few, if any, Sassenachs
Or tourists from the South;
Or journalists, mere third-rate hacks,
Or any one uncouth
To blot our landscape. Now it’s more
Than difficult, it’s hell
To move on roads, with cars galore,
And charabancs as well.
For with McAdam’s mixture they
Are covered, overlaid;
And he a Scot, too – curse the day
He gave us tar! ’Nuff said.
Edward Garden
[Tune: ‘There is a Tavern in the Town’]
Kind rural road twist, wind and bump,
Across the fields from parish pump,
Beside the rook-infested trees,
Past Wingfield bell and Syleham leas.
Leave now that haven, safe, sedate
And join the B-one-one-one-eight
Where daffodils bestrew the lanes,
Where once St Edmund cursed the Danes.
Go loop around the flaxen crop
Where owls look on and rabbits hop,
Go out round Waveney’s crooked line,
By Hoxne Church and Oakley swine.
The A-one-forty looms in sight,
With crashing gear and planning blight,
A world apart, a quantum jump,
Across the field from parish pump.
Peter Davies
[Tune: ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’]
Roadworks at the roundabout,
Causing long delays,
Follow the diversion.
Lasting forty days.
There’s a squad car at the site,
Warning! – Mud on roads,
Most essential road improvement.
Watch for crossing toads.
At the blinking speed trap lights,
Slow to almost stop.
Watch out for the lady
With her lollipop.
Parking on the yellow line
Means a fine for sure.
Turn left at the riding stables –
D.I.Y. manure.
Peter E Pavey
The Oldie 'On The Road' results
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