Thursday, July 2, 2009

Big Green Man!


THINK GREEN THURSDAY

BIG GREEN MAN!

(OK! He's white!)

The Long Man of Wilmington, he's such a mystery,
Nobody knows anything of his history!
Yet here on a hillside in Sussex he's seen
With the white of his chalk so enhanced by the green.
Is he there as a symbol, or just as a joke,
Was he dug by the locals or some other folk?
I do know for certain he's part of my youth,
An old College study to find out the truth.
I studied at Brighton, not too far away.
We were sent out to view him and spent a whole day
Looking into the records all stored round about
To discover his past. And we never found out!
We had lots of fun, we enjoyed lots of laughter
But we never discovered the truth we were after.
Nor has anyone else, I am sorry to say,
So he keeps his mystery right to this day.
*
One postscript I'm adding, because it is green.......
The Long Man of Wilmington's easily seen
From a long way away and so, all through the war,
The planes of the enemy liked what they saw!
He showed them the way so he went under-cover
So no naughty Hun could his hillside discover.
And, so that the Long Man no longer was seen,
They painted his outline.
They painted him
GREEN!


A sad relic of the era here:


2 comments:

dianasfaria.com said...

such a unique, creative think green post!

Kat said...

Just to add to your last line....

I read with interest on looking up.... that he was painted green due to the following reason During World War II, the figure was painted green to prevent enemy aviators using it as a landmark.