We all recall the nursery rhymes our parents sang and now maybe we share their antics with our own children. Nursery rhymes originated back in 1795 and are still popular. But ever wonder what happened to those characters when they grew up, or, why they did what they did? This is a fun, light-hearted look at some of those characters now as adults.

 

“Tom, Tom, the Piper’s son, stole a pig…How that chant has followed me everywhere. I’m sick of it. If people stopped judging so quickly and actually waited to know the facts, they’d sing a different tune.

Everyone thinks I’m a thief but I’m not, not in a real way. Yes, I took a pig and ran away with it but only because we were hungry. There are two parts to Nursery Rhyme Village, those who had and those who hadn’t. Dad was an excellent piper and he longed to join the courts of Old King Cole. But the Fiddlers Three had the entertainment slot all to themselves.

Dad tried a few times to audition but they scoffed at him. Broke his spirit and he eventually ended up busking. Busking doesn’t feed a family where we lived, the ‘had not’ side of town. So now you see why I stole a pig?

And yes, I paid the price with a good lashing.

Still when that pig was roasted on the spit, over the coals, it not only smelt good, but it also tasted divine. Mam had a vegetable patch and boiled up some spuds. Covered them in butter and salt, oh I can taste it now, delicious. Poor or not, we shared when we could and my parents always sent over any extra food to the Old Woman in the Shoe-house. She had a gang of children.

I left Nursery Rhyme Village as soon as I turned eighteen. Came here to Fairytale City. I’ve not been back to the village in a long time. I’ve heard snippets of news here and there. A few other residents of the village moved here to the city. Better opportunities.

It wasn’t that Nursery Rhyme Village was a dump, no not at all, just we had a rubbish idiot in charge of us. The so called Grand Old Duke of York. Now there was a waste of, never mind, let’s say he was such a pompous git that liked to see his men marching around pretending they were a mighty army.

Continue reading in this week’s Ireland’s Own