(to be read in a Black Country accent)

A viola, while playing col legno
In Tipton, cried: "Ain't it odd when yo'
Know what to play,
And yo' know it's today,
But yo've quite forgotten the vegno?"

There was another splendid one from Ian...using the most popular intro of
them all...

As Ian was waving his baton
He heard a small voice crying : "Va-t-en!"
A frog (or grenouille)
Would soon have been chewy
When "bien assaisie" - or sat on.

... but it was disqualified on grounds on which the jury is still out -
Ian maintains that the mute `e' in `assaisie' is pronounced. I say it
isn't, because a) it doesn't precede a consonant, and b) it doesn't come at
the end of a line. Bernac's excellent book on fr. pronunciation would help,
but I can't find it. Probably le chat l'a mangé.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 

Joan submitted a veritable cornucopia of gems, any one of which could have
won (if we could have thought of a way to disqualify Ian's winning
entry...).

We gave second prize to this one: I say `we', but by decision time Sue was
under the table suffering from a surfeit of gin, so I alone take
responsibility.

There's this grand little tenor named Tony,
Who chugs up the hill on Shanks' pony:
The fivers we lose
He converts into booze,
Chicken legs, pâté, cheese and polony.

here are the rest of Joan's Ls:

On the Pennines a wandering trombone
In the moonlight exclaimed with a groan:
"I have searched till nightfall
For this place Heptonstall
At the bidding of someone called Joan..."

Come, rattle the drum, bang the tabor
For the Cook who can tackle McCabe, or
A flute part in C,
Or recorders (with glee),
Or a nice Concertino by Weber.

We forgive - just - the rime riche in 1 & 2. But it would be nice not to
make a habit of it, hm? Aprés tous, nous sommes anglais, quoi quoi?

A worthy horn player, Vijita,
Swigged vodka and rum by the litre.
He said: "It tastes vile,
But I down it and smile,
For it makes my top notes so much sweeter."

A trumpeter, John Tognarelli,
Played with elegant style in Corelli,
But in Carmen, such grace
Was declared out of place:
"Look," said Michael, "Just give it some welly."

As Ian was waving his baton
In his T-shirt and shorts (with no hat on),
You could just see the cork
And three inches of stalk,
For the rest, he explained, had been sat on.

"My flute", said young [? Ed.] Jane, "has a fipple,
And when I've been out for a tipple
A cascade of notes
From my instrument floats
And the melodies shimmer and ripple."

"I can't sing this song, it's too rude,
With its lyrics so vulgar and lewd,
But, measure by measure,
I'll hum it with pleasure,
Then no-one can say I'm a prude."

The next one is `my' sort of L - playing on spelling. There were two or
three - Ian's winner, and the one by Roger Scaife. This L also treats of
someone we all know well - Geoff, a much-maligned trombonist (and rightly
so).

A tenor trombonist named Geoff
Was engaged to play Verdi's MacBeoff.
As he raised his trombone
He exclaimed, with a groan,
"Why on earth must they use alto cleoff?"

Not content with this first batch, Joan presented some afterthoughts a day
or two later. Talk about an embarras de richesses! (not obligatory, of
course but if you must...) And note, if you will, that Ian only offered a
pathetic two. Beautifully crafted, of course, but a mere two. (Of course,
he's terribly busy...)

There's a trumpeter, young Helen Poole,
Whose playing makes everyone drool.
At Maths (Further or Pure)
She's a star, to be sure,
AND she counts her rests right (as a rule...)

Now in Zimbabwe, where Helen will be for a twelvemoth from this September,
it tends to be rather hot and dry (I understand.) In Heptonstall, on the
other hand, it rains, and it did so this year incessantly, making the usual
`overspill' journey to the necessary offices in the church hall at interval
time a demanding exercise in puddle-dodging...at a time when one least
wants to be reminded of watery manifestations. Long-standing audients have
learned from bitter experience that it is NOT a good idea, before an Ian
Harrold concert, to down six pints of Timothy Taylor's in the Cross,
however advisable it is, parking considered, to arrive about four hours
early.

As Ian announced each evening (and I paraphrase): If the men wish the toilets to use, then
it's they who'll get soaking wet shoes, for the ladies, if itchin', can
queue in the kitchen, for up here we don't have PC loos. Which thought
no doubt led Joan to this merry bladder-wrack:

When the path like a river awash is,
And you've come here without macintoshes,
Why wade to the loos
And ruin your shoes?
- Pray, gentlemen, use your galoshes.

A couple of years ago there was so much brass in t'band that by the close
of the Saturday concert the entire audience was squashed up against
t'kitchen wall by the sheer volume of sound, wilting under the onslaught
(as in `Wilt thou, Sidney Ogdentwistle, tek this lass Alice Thwaitelifter
to be thi awful wedded wife?' `Ay, parson, ah wilt.' ) It wasn't quite so bad,
decibelwise, this year, but memories linger on, & there is always poetic
licence.

Indeed, there was so little brass this year that at least two local breweries have
gone out of business, and a house of ill-repute in Mytholmroyd has had to
install a fruit machine to make ends meet (so to speak.) But we did have a
plethora of `primo-uomo' pianists... David and Nick, or Nick and David,
according to which fan club you belong to, hence:

When you're playing Rachmaninov 3rd
To feel nervous would just be absurd,
For whatever you do
(Fluff a chord, miss a cue...)
With this band it'll never be heard!

Joan's MS thoughtfully goes on: `This has NO relevance to Nick or to the
PSM orchestra!'. Hm.
 

Nigel (to whom we awarded the third prize) is tantalising because he always
gets stuck on the last line, and has to seek assistance. There are very few
Nigels that could be read or even printed in polite company. Here are some that can:

A slovenly cellist named Greeley
Kept his cello outside in a wheelie
The stuff in the bin
Grew on it like skin
And made it all touchy and feely.

There was a trombonist named Geoff
Who frequently ran out of breath
He practised for years
To breathe through his ears
But it rendered him totally deaf.

"My trumpet", said John Tognarelli,
"Fits nicely inside my left welly.
An obvious place
If you have't a case,
Though the mouthpiece can get a bit smelly..."

And one that just about escapes an X certificate:

A young violinist from Bude
With plentiful charms was imbued:
In the Rachmaninov
Her G-string came off,
And she finished the piece in the percussion.

But ah! that wretched rime riche again...

And now to the Roger Scaife - a neat little tribute to Il Maestro, with that spelling
twist that I enjoy so much in limericks:

There is a man newly in Gloucester
Who sings both in crypt and in Cloucester,
And yet every Spring
He comes north to sing,
Just to see if his name's on the poucester.
 

And a couple from Mel -

Ian Harrold, musician and tutor,
Writes concertos for Jane just to suit her:
But of course we all know, Sir
Is not the composer -
he just copies it from his computer.

An orchestra leader named Liz,
After drinking a pint of Buck's fizz,
Got McCabe interwoven
With Purcell and Beethoven:
She now has a job in showbiz.
 

The Anderton family is indeed a talented one. Anne (who begat Liz) leapt into rehearsal one day with the children (whom Liz begat) waving a couple of limmies that Joe had relayed to her on the electrical telephone.

Here is one (I can't find the other just at the moment...)

As Ian was raising his baton
Jane wailed: "Ooh, my flute has been sat on!"
Said Ian: "How sad;
It's really too bad:
Your A# will now be a flat 'un."

One from Tina Power betrays (or shows off...) an intimate knowledge of the Harrold household, for she writes of the fiendish beast that dominates it, the cat aptly named Rocky:

As Ian was waving his baton
He realised he still had his hat on!
With a gasp and a snigger
he kept beating with vigour:
"It sure beats the one Rocky sat on!"
 

From the other Power comes this next one (Michael is a tenor. Need I say more? Ed. (bs.)):

I can't sing this song: it's too hard,
Because my mouth's too full of lard.
When I sing all my grace notes
They sound more like bass notes,
And reduce the pub's glasses to shards.

Whoever wrote the starter line: `My flute', said young [!!! Ed.] Jane, `has a fipple...'
was evidently a vulgarian. Martin neatly avoided the obvious rhyme (some of you didn't. Tut tut. How coarse) with this:

"My flute", said young [hee hee HEE! Ed.] Jane, "has a fipple!
So I'm rather afraid that my lip'll
Not be quite as quick
As I'd like it it, to lick
Up a nip of my favourite tipple."

Which is, of course, gin. We were very sorry for Jane this year, because she was actually very ill all week, though you wouldn't have guessed when she played. But she was. On the other hand, I took nearly a full litre bottle of gin home with me, sho in every lining there ish a shilver cloud.)

Finally, though certainly not last, and emphatically not least, was a clutch (? bevy? pride? gaggle? A bottle of wine for the best collective noun for a plurality of limericks - to be awarded next year.) from Rosalind Corser, reproduced here in all the detail of the MS:
 

Limericks by Rosalind Corser

"My flute", said young [I'm saying nowt. Ed.] Jane, "has a fipple!
I fill it with raspberry ripple,
Then, when I am playing,
My tongue keeps on straying
And slurping it up for a tipple!"

"I can't sing this song, it's too high:
I feel like I'm up in the sky!
But prick with a pin,
Or prime me with gin,
And I'll soon have a jolly good try!"

(A True Story)
Last night there was quite a to-do,
'Cos someone got locked in the loo.
Then Ann lost the key
And Liz said: "Dear me!
The *seconds will be one too few."

*i.e. 2nd violins

And lastly - a very very very very very nearly selected one for prizey substances (but not quite - life is so unfair!)

A music librarian named Vera
Said: "This printing should be a lot clearer:
The Harrold is neat -
You can read it a treat,
But McCabe is much worse - though it's dearer...
 

(afterthought)
 

...And it's certainly hard on the hearer!"