How I love dialect poetry Arthur and the narrative tales they tell. How good
this would be read out in your Yorkshire accent. I used to write in
Lancashire Dialect and still go around reading them from time to time.
Really enjoyed this. Bw Sally J

>From: Arthur Seeley <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: New Sub: The Two-ringed Circus
>Date: Sat, 16 Oct 2004 16:58:04 +0100
>
>Tales at my Mother's Knee: No. 1: The Two Ring Circus
>
>
>
>Always a story for bed
>
>even though she worked all hours
>
>in that fiery bakery
>
>Up at five, to bed at eleven,
>
>husband at the war and three kids to keep,
>
>but always a story for bed.
>
>Hands smoothed over the crisp apron
>
>the coke in the oven rustled to settle,
>
>beside the quiet metronomic rock of her chair
>
>we gathered and she began:
>
>
>
>"Mi Dad, thi granddad Thomas
>
>  had a terrible thirst, tha knows,
>
>sup owt he would, well it killed him at finish,
>
>didn't it, but you know that."
>
>
>
>"He wuh a skilled mason and all,
>
>helped to build Ogden Water, he did.
>
>He had a hand in most of t'big buildings in Halifax as well,
>
>  I seem to recall."
>
>
>
>"But he had to have his drink, hadn't he?
>
>Chose how many times
>
>he said he wouldn't, never again,
>
>oh no, never again,
>
>took the oath, in his best black suit
>
>and shirt and tie, holding his hymn book,
>
>swore to God on high, he did,
>
>but bless me if he didn't start again two weeks later.
>
>Aye, drink wuh a curse for him
>
>and many like him I suppose.
>
>Smart as paint and a good worker
>
>when he wuh sober
>
>but a rabscallion when t' drink wur on him."
>
>
>
>"Do you know when he'd spent up
>
>and he had nowt to buy a drink with,
>
>not a copper coin,
>
>he still had his two-ringed circus in his topcoat."
>
>
>
>"Ah! I can see yuh looking strange there,
>
>that made thi sit up and take notice, eh,
>
>but he did, tha knows,
>
>anyroad he called it his two-ringed circus."
>
>
>
>"He had an albino rat
>
>that he'd caught from back at t'oven.
>
>It used to come out
>
>and sit on t'hearth and whistle,
>
>he told us,
>
>and one night he copt it
>
>and kept it on a chain
>
>in his topcoat pocket.
>
>He fed it scraps and things
>
>and called it Albert,
>
>  which is a daft name for a rat,
>
>I allus thought."
>
>
>
>"So now, he could go into a pub
>
>and tell anyone as would listen
>
>that he had t' only whistling rat in t'world.
>
>But it wouldn't whistle fuh nowt you see,
>
>there had to be a pint or two in it fuh him.
>
>He wur its manager he reckoned and deserving.
>
>So when there wur a pint on t' counter
>
>out would come t' rat
>
>and it would sit on t' bar
>
>and whistle like a good un.
>
>Mind you I don't think it wuh whistling really,
>
>just squeaking like rats do,
>
>but when you've had a few yourself
>
>and this feller tells you it's whistling
>
>you'll believe it.
>
>Being white with those pink albino eyes
>
>helped a bit too, I'm thinking."
>
>
>
>"What? Two rings.
>
>Oh aye, I wuh coming to that.
>
>Well in t'other pocket
>
>he had the smallest pups in t' world.
>
>Yuh see, this peke had died
>
>while it wuh being operated on for gall stones
>
>and she wuh pregnant
>
>so they had to take these pups away from her.
>
>They wuh fully formed
>
>but pale and hairless
>
>and their little eyes wuh shut.
>
>They wuh in a jar kept in surgical alcohol.
>
>Pickled in a way, I suppose.
>
>I didn't like to look at them.
>
>They made me feel queer,
>
>bobbing and floating about like that,
>
>like little fish.
>
>He even kept the gallstone on his watch chain.
>
>He wuh a queer one at times,
>
>tha knows, really queer."
>
>
>
>"He lost his watch
>
>and t' chain with t' stone on't
>
>in a fight over summat and nowt
>
>one Wake week when he wuh drunk."
>
>
>
>"But it kept him in drink
>
>did his two-ringed circus
>
>until t'time came
>
>  when everyone had seen it
>
>and weren't interested nomore,
>
>all t'novelty had gone, you see.
>
>When you've seen it once
>
>there's not much else left is there, really.
>
>Not worth a drink, anyroad."
>
>
>
>"Albert, the rat, died and all,
>
>so yuh Grandad, as I live and breath,
>
>bless me if he didn't empty the pups out
>
>and drink the jar of alcohol."
>
>
>
>"He did it private, mind,
>
>in the lean-to in't back yard
>
>where he kept his tools and ladders."
>
>
>
>"Yuh Grandma, bless her, found him asleep
>
>  and white as t'toilet wall, laid out on some sacking.
>
>She swilled him with t'mop bucket but he didn't move,
>
>not for two days, he dint.
>
>By Gow, but he wuh poorly."
>
>
>
>"I went out a few times to look at him,
>
>pale, snoring, sometimes moaning.
>
>It's not nice, yuh know,
>
>seeing yur own Dad laid like that.
>
>white as tallow and covered in puke."
>
>
>
>"Aye, well. t'drink killed him at finish, dint it ?
>
>Now, come on, no more tales tonight.
>
>Off to bed like good lads."

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