When I Get Home

Chris Elliott 2018

(Spoken) Dear Mum and dad and all at number twelve.

When I get home
The mayor and the corporation
Will be waiting there for me
Ill get a blooming medal
And they’ll ask me back for tea
Then present me with the keys
So we can live at Stubbylee
When I get home

When I get home
Mr Lord will send a message
Inviting me to call
He has a proposition
So I’ll listen up and all (but I’ll tell him)
Its seat on the board old lad
Or it’s nothing else at all
When I get home

When I get home the coop and the butcher
Will offer credit to me Ma
I’ll sell me old boneshaker
And I’ll drive a motorcar
No more ruddy woodbines
Just the very best cigar
When I get home

No more bully beef or ticklers jam
No more cooks who couldn’t give a damn
No more hard tack, mouldy cheese
Rats and mice and lice and fleas
And no more naughty French disease
When I get home

When I get home
All the pubs in Bacup
Will open their front door
I’ll sup ale in public houses
Where I’ve never supped before
And when I’ve supped me last pint
They’ll say ‘would you like one more?’
When I get home

When I get home
All the girls from Irwell Mill
Will want to take my arm
They know and east Lancashire
Will keep them safe from harm,
And perhaps later in the evening
Well take a stroll up Jeffry’s barn
When I get home
When I get home
I’ll sit down on the tippler when I want to take me ease
I’ll have use of proper paper
Not gun cotton or leaves
And I can read the Bacup Times
With it perched on me knees
When I get home

(Spoken) ‘Hold on a bit’
‘Oh heck it’s the head prefect’
‘Well you know what they say’
‘You can always tell a grammar school chap but you can’t tell him owt’

Little Mr grammar school
Sticks his pips around the door
And tells us it’s time to go
Where we’ve never been before
So we’ll take stroll from our boggart hole
And be back in time for tea
So I’ll finish off this letter

(Spoken) ‘ And send love to all of thee…
And I’ll see thee soon’

When I get home.

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