Jelly-Babies

ABC WEDNESDAY

JELLY-BABIES

A boring human baby doesn't really have much history,

I speak of the 'pink and fleshy, which is how we used to be.
But a jelly baby is different; its story is written down

And, in confectionary circles, it's a 'baby' of renown.

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Jelly-babies were invented at the end of World War One,

To celebrate the fact that war was over, finished, done.

The 'babies' represented renewal; a brand new generation;

They were launched with quite a fanfare and every expectation. 

But production ceased in World War Two; sugar was in short supply

And 'peace' could not be celebrated when men were going to die.

However, their popularity continues to this day

And it seems that jelly-babies are surely here to stay.

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One interesting footnote...... nearly fifty years ago

The Beatles adored the 'babies' and let everybody know.

So, in England, they were pelted with them when on concert tours,

By screaming fans, who added them to conventional applause.

When the Beatles went to America, jelly-babies were not known,

So the crowds threw jelly-beans instead, each one like a little stone!
They found this rather painful, and each gave a little yelp!
(Maybe they'd been singing that well-known ballad ......'Help!')

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OH WHAT FOLLY!

It seems to me the films of yore

Have a great deal to answer for.

They led us to expect Great Expectations.

I grew up thinking life would be

One huge Broadway Melody,

Set to music, with no complications!

I knew, one day, Dick Powell would come

And a heavenly choir would start to hum,

And soon he'd take my hand and sing a chorus.

And all the Waiters round about

Would join the song, without a doubt,

And all the other diners would adore us.

Or else some Busby Berkeley girls,

With rosebud mouths and careful curls,

Would enter in a sinuous formation,

They might descend some golden stairs,

In groups of three or, maybe, pairs,

And everyone would gasp in admiration.

While Fred Astaire would swoop and glide

And be there smiling at my side

Before he whisked me off to Gay Paree,

And, all the while, angelic choirs

Which every scene of love requires,

Would sing their songs of romance just for me.

No 'naughty bits', and no-one nude,

Just a romantic interlude,

And when a little girl is only four,

She tends to take the whole thing in,

 Not realising 'sex' and 'sin'

Are part of the life that, sadly, lies in store.

As I grew up into my teens

I waited for romantic scenes

But they were very rare and not inspiring.

Dick Powell never came my way

To say the words I'd heard him say

And noone did much swooning and admiring.

I came to terms, as people do,

With what is false and what is true,

But I never lost a sense of melancholy.

To think that it was all a lie!

But now I'm understanding why....

Florence Ziegfield!

You knew it was all  'folly'.

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