From the singing of Albert Shaw...a fine old singer from the Black Country...who died many, many years ago. For a long time he was a regular at the Painters Arms Club, Coseley, (between Sedgley and Tipton) a singaround club started by Taffy Thomas. At one time the regulars included Taffy, Sheila Thomas, Bill Caddick, John and Sue Kirkpatrick, Mick Bramwich, John Yair, Mike Frost, Jeannie Harris, Pete and Chris Coe, etc. etc.! A real who’s who of singers. I helped Taffy run the evenings for many years, and when Magic Lantern decamped to Suffolk, took over the running myself. After a while Bill our wonderful landlord retired and was replaced by a man who thought that the room would be better used for darts...so we moved, but ‘twas never the same again and only lasted about six months. End of history note. Anyway this is the version that Albert sang...not very PC these days, but there we are!

MISS TICKLE TOVEY

1. Miss Tickle Tovey kept a school and she was deeply read, sir.
Taught all the girls the Golden Rule and everything that’s good, sir.
She only took young maidens in, the gentry of the Nation.
She gave them what you here might call a slap-up education.

CHO: Won’t you come, boys, come? Won’t you come, boys, come?
To Miss Tickle Tovey’s, won’t you come, boys, come?

2. Now a wealthy Squire who lived close by, he had such lots of riches,
He always liked to be fumbling round the young girl’s silk frilled britches.
But whenever they went out to town, these pretty little lasses,
Miss Tickle Tovey, mademoiselle, was hanging round their ... ear’oles. CHO.

3. So he shaved his whiskers neat and trim, put everything in order,
And off to Mistress Tovey’s went to be taken as a boarder.
The old girl soon admitted him, her cock eye brightly glistening,
And the Squire he looked as modest as an old whore at a christening. CHO.

4. She praised his great accomplishments, his dancing and his singing.
One night she put him to bed to sleep between two plump young women,
And one of these, a strapping wench whose name it was Miss Molly,
Got fumbling under the bedclothes, put her hand against his...Rule, Britannia! CHO.

5. “What’s this?” says she. “Me rule,” says he, for at answers he was a quick one.
“Then it must be The Rule of Three. This sum’s a mighty stiff one.”
Then groping down, he felt about till he came to her incision.
Then he showed her how to multiply, add up and long division. CHO.

6. Now nearly nine long months passed by when a servant girl, Nell Kelly,
Noticed some of the girls had got a swelling in their...faces.
She called unto the doctor just to draw the maidens’ water.
To some he drew a fine young son and to some a fair young daughter. CHO.

7. When Miss Tickle Tovey heard of this, she answered, “What a glutton!
Sooner than have me school disgraced, I’d have sacrificed me mutton.”
So now when she wants to tell the right ‘uns from the wrong ‘uns,
She turns ‘em upside down to see it they’ve got short or long ‘uns. CHO.

END

Enjoy! Sunshine and smiles Dave