What did those childhood rhymes mean?

Well actually, it is not the fact that she gets them wrong that bugs me but the fact that she is so adamant she is right.

“Dad told me!” is her stock reply.

“Tell pyat, tell pyat, your tongue will split!” she declares and everyone except her knows that she is mixing up two rhymes. But she will not be told!

Mind you, in my charitable moments I can understand her confusion. What were those childhood rhymes all about? And, more to the point, do children today still have the same rhymes?

Before I continue, let me clear up my sister’s mistakes.

The two she is thinking of include one my father did, indeed, teach us: “Tell pyat, tell pyat sits on a church wa’. Eats a bit pudding and lets a bit fa’.”

I have no idea what a pyat is, so don’t even ask!

Part two of Fiona’s rhyme is, of course: “Tell tale tit, your tongue will split and all the little puppy dogs will have a little bit!”

Looking back on the rhymes of our childhood, the best were our skipping rhymes.

Some of these, it seems, were very political. I don’t know why the American elections would have affected a bunch of 10 year olds in Africa, but we used to chant, as we skipped: “Vote, vote vote for President Kennedy. In comes Nixon at the door. He is the one that we all love best so we don’t want Kennedy any more. Shut the door!”

I might add that the sentiments expressed in that rhyme were not necessarily those of the chanters!

We had strange rhymes, usually to accompany an insult and often making very little sense.

“Cowardy, cowardy custard stick your mother in mustard. If you do or if you don’t, cowardy, cowardy custard!”

Then, for someone looking at you when he/she shouldn’t: “Stare, stare like a bear. Call your mother ginger hair. Chase your father round the chair like a sausage in the air!”

Why did we say that? How is chasing your father like a sausage in the air? How does a bear stare?

Facts didn’t matter, it appears. Just the sentiment.

It seems there were some regional changes to familiar rhymes.

In Zambia we used to accuse people thus: “Liar, liar pants on fire. Your nose is as long as a telephone wire.”

In appears in Northern England the rhyme was a little more common and quite a bit funnier: “You liar, you liar your bum’s on fire. Your hair sticks up like a telephone wire.”

My daughter, who is 31, loved clapping games as a child and had some delightful chants to clap to - but some much more sophisticated than anything we had as children.

“My name is Anna Kareen and I’m a beauty queen ....

“I’ve got the hips, I’ve got the lips .....”

Can’t remember the rest of that one or the beginning of the one that ended "... girlfriend Lesley, sitting in the back seat ..." (followed by kissing noises).

In my day we didn’t know what boys were for and life at a convent boarding school did nothing to teach us, even during our teenage years.

Today’s children, it seems, have lost some of that worldly wisdom but have little political correctness!

Young Safira Ali, 23, remembers her favourite skipping chant:

Down by the river, down by the sea, Johnny broke a bottle and blamed it on me.

I told ma, ma told pa,

Johnny got a spanking so ha ha ha.

How many spankings did Johnny get?

One, two three . . . ”

I wonder how much you can tell about a nation or a generation by its rhymes?

The ones mentioned above exclude all nursery rhymes, of course, which tend to go from generation to generation except when idiots tamper with them.

I still get blood pressure over the idiots who wanted us to change Baa, baa black sheep to Baa, baa green sheep so as not to be racist!