G'day Martin Ryan, Joe Offer & BruceO,

I must have skirted past this thread first time round - and not read too far back the second! (Er ... g'day Malcolm, I must have started my posting about when you sent yours!).

Anyway, John Manifold's remarks about the "unprintable" Lady Monroe would be lifted from John Meredith's notes on a song he wrote to use the tune ... published in Singabout, Journal of Australian Folk Song ... around 1960. I'll look it up when I get home. Merro sang Lady Monroe to me in the early '60s ... it was only a single verse and chorus ... and somewhat less "unprintable" by today's standards than the '60s in Australia.

As I remember it:

Monroe has a foot for a stocking,
Monroe has a foot for a shoe,
Monroe has a cunt for a sailor,
but not for a bastard like you!
    So it's over the hedges and ditches,
    Up to your bollocks in snow.
    A prick frozen fast to your britches -
    Would rise to the cunt of Monroe.

I don't remember there being any more ... but I could suss out if any of my friends who have access to the Meredith Collection tapes and papers know of any more. (I doubt that we are going to find anything of deep literary significance ... but folklore should recognise the whole field!)

Regards,

Bob Bolton