Kitty,

Spanish Ladies started off life as a pilots menonic (Sic).

Take the sailing directions and prick them on a chart of the English channel. A Safe course to the Downs and then the Nore.

The fact that it seems to have been around for many hundred years is a tribute to the usefulness of the menonic.

I submit it did not degenarate to a jolly drinking song till much later.

For similar folk creep "Brave Benbow" is normally sung as a jolly fast tune.

Acually some years ago I was part of a group that did a similar menomic song about sailing up the Medway. Trouble was it was such a drunken night in a Sailing Club at Upnor none of us could remember or decipher our notes come the Morning !!!!

Gareth