Berryman’s rhymes celebrated the places of Gloucestershire
» ON wet days in primary school when you couldn’t go out to play you may recall that the class would sing jaunty songs about local places and events, perhaps accompanied by teacher tickling the ivories of an upright piano.
The tunes had names such as Lady Bell-gate, The Fiddler’s Elbow, Painswick Beacon and The Gates of Gloucester.
Each a celebration of a well known locality, these ditties were penned by E R P Berryman with illustrations by Noreen Littleton and published as The Nursery Rhymes of Gloucestershire.
Berryman, a regular officer in the Indian Army, began writing them while serving abroad.
Leaving his wife and young family at home in England was understandably a wrench, so he penned the nostalgia tinged rhymes for his son.
The idea of doing so was suggested to him by his wife who was familiar with a book of children’s verses by Eleanor Farjeon called The Nursery Rhymes of London Town.
A collection of Berryman’s rhymes came to the attention of Dr Lee-williams, the organist of Gloucester Cathedral.
He found them charming and so set the words to music and published a private edition, which was circulated to schools in the city in the 1930s.
The Berryman/ Lee-williams collaboration proved to be such a success that a Gloucester publishing company brought out a commercially available collection, which sold well and was reprinted a number of times.
Wider recognition was achieved when four of Berryman’s verses were set to music by Eileen O’malley and published by Boosey & Hawkes.
In the late 1960s, The Nursery
Rhymes of Gloucestershire was republished.
Reaching a new generation of local children it enjoyed a second successful outing.
Then in 1984 Berryman’s son, for whom the rhymes were written, offered the copyright to the Clic charity, which was then raising money to build the Gloucestershire Special Adventure Playground at Seven Springs, near Coberley.
Consequently another edition was published, again with success, introducing the verses that were then around 100 years old to a new audience.
Along with a good ear for a rhyme, E R P Berryman had a keen interest in local history and traditions. In the introduction to a 1960 edition of his book, for example, he explains “The origin of the name Oxbode Lane is seemingly lost, but it is hoped that the rhyme about it will help to preserve its correct pronounciation – Oxbody, for one hears it referred to now as The Oxbode, to rhyme with ‘mode’ ”.
Here’s the first verse, recalling Oxbody lane as it was prior to being redeveloped and widened.
“There’s an ox lying dead at the end of the lane/ His head on the pathway, his feet in the drain,/the lane is so narrow, his back was so wide/ He got stuck in the road twixt a house on each side”.
The verse goes on to describe how the unfortunate Ox was butchered on the spot and taken away joint by joint.
Less gruesome is the rhyme titled Bearland.
“Before the town of Gloucester went spreading far and wide/ All sorts of savage animals roamed o’re the countryside/ And grandmother will tell you how once a big black bear/ Came running down into the town and carried off the Mayor.”
Many will remember the jokes and rhymes that appeared on the back of England’s Glory match boxes, produced by Moreland’s at their Bristol Road factory in Gloucester prior to its closure in 1976.
The idea of printing jokes on the back of matchboxes was started by Moreland’s in the early years of last century and other manufacturers followed suit.
Eventually about 500 different witticisms were used a year, all submitted by members of the public and each one personally chosen by head of the firm Sam Moreland.
When once asked how he selected a suitable joke Sam replied “If it makes me laugh, we don’t use it”.
Some of the gags were translated into Welsh, others took poetic form, as in this example.
“A gentleman named Hardwick by a cricket ball was struck. Five words were on his tombstone - Hardwick, hard ball, hard luck”.