Big Game Hunting

On a trip to Rochdale, last Monday afternoon

I was walking to the Wheatsheaf under the post-morning gloom

when a group of old men with strange curled-up moustaches

pulled up in a Landrover and piled out in their masses.

They all carried elephant-guns with big funnelled ends

shouting, 'What O' and 'Old chap!' to each of their friends.

They collected together, under a bus shelter wing

and there out of the rain they proceeded to sing.

They ceased with their chants as the big bus pulled up

hiding behind the frosted glass where an old woman stood.

As the bus pulled away, the men yelled out their battle-cries;

with Zimmer-frames convulsing they chased after their prize.

With arthritic legs racing and blunderbusses ablazing

the double-decker they were chasing stop with fear in its tracks.

The driver was beaten, the conductor was eaten

and so was the policeman that came to protest.

When the frenzy had passed, a man wearing a mask,

with jig-saw at his side, he proceeded to saw.

The front of the bus, with the bus driver behind the wheel

was bolted to a plaque and driven to Keele.

And there it was hung above a banqueting table,

in Sir Richard's Great Hall, next to his Great Aunt Mabel.

February 1996

Click here for the Spoken Version - 2006