I was reading a blog (offallygood) about scallops and in the post Hannah mentions The Walrus and the Carpenter. Which made me think about my dad. Noel had a thing about nonsense poetry, actually he just had a thing about words, partly I think because he couldn’t read properly. I’m pretty sure that he had dyslexia but whether he did or not, he struggled to read.
He recited though and he used to recite The Owl and the Pussycat with particular emphasis on ‘the ring at the end of his nose, his nose, with a ring at the end of his nose’. I can hear and see him doing it now. (In fact we all love words and we lived through Ben reciting this little ditty for ages after he read Fantastic Mr Fox, I still know it off by heart now…Boggis and Bunce and Bean/One fat, one short, one lean/These horrible crooks/So different in looks/Were nonetheless equally mean)
When Dad died, for me (and for Ma, I think) there was a sense of relief. He was hard on the people who loved him and when he died, I could explaining our relationship, why I called him Noel, how I couldn’t be around him too much and so on… I stopped being judged for not being a ‘good daughter’, there was no longer any to defend myself from people who thought that because he was my father I should put up with the drinking and his bad behaviour. No one said, “He’s your Dad and you shouldn’t treat your Dad like that” with no understanding of how hard it was to be his daughter.
Despite that, when I see Oli, I wish Dad was here to see him. To see the amazing boy that Ben and Lu made, I know that Oli would have been loved him, would have been fascinated by Dad’s big ginger beard and I know that Dad at some point would have ‘read’ him The Owl and the Pussycat because he loved it and he made it special and silly.
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are, you are, you are,
What a beautiful Pussy you are.”
Pussy said to the Owl “You elegant fowl,
How charmingly sweet you sing.
O let us be married, too long we have tarried;
But what shall we do for a ring?”
They sailed away, for a year and a day,
To the land where the Bong-tree grows,
And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood
With a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose,
With a ring at the end of his nose.
“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring?”
Said the Piggy, “I will”
So they took it away, and were married next day
By the Turkey who lives on the hill.
They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon.
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand.
They danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon,
They danced by the light of the moon.
Nic Dempsey 