NEW SERIES: MUSIC HALL GREATS ~ Billy Bennett

 NELL

                                                                           by Billy Bennett

Billy Bennett's father was John 'Jock' Bennett of 'Bennett and Martel', a knockabout double act on the English music halls at the turn of the century.  He followed his father into show business after a brief spell working in insurance.  He trained as an acrobat, then ran away and joined the army, serving in World War One and being decorated.  During the war, he became a canteen comic and, on his return to the halls in 1919, he performed a soldier act, complete with martial airs and songs like It's a Long Way to Tipperary.  This was not appreciated at the Theatre Royal Dublin by the audience or the manager and Bennett felt obliged to resort to disguise for his own safety, donning a false moustache and the plastered quiff of hair which soon became his trademark. Later, the army clothes went in favour of ill-fitting evening dress, but the army boots remained. More classic Billy Bennett next month.

   Nell was a collier's daughter,
Innocent, sweet seventeen
Shall I tell you the story of Nellie?
Yes, tell us it, Bill, if it's clean.

Nell was a collier's daughter,
With a coal-black daddy so fine,
At the close of the day to the theatre he'd stray
To forget the dark toil of the mine.

Once he sat in the gallery with some of the lads,
They started to quarrel a bit.
It wasn't his shift, but they gave him a lift,
And the collier went down in the pit.

Years have rolled on since that happened,
Time soothed the widow's pain.
One morning she met a diver
And the girl's mother married again.

Nell was a diver's daughter-
She used to dive under the ships.
She'd walk on the bed of the ocean
And tread on the fishes and chips.

But the mother and she could never agree,
And they quarrelled for hours and hours.
Once she called her a dog, so she picked up her clog,
And then came a coach filled with flowers.

Years have rolled on since that happened,
Time soothed the widow's pain.
One morning she met a plumber
And the girl's mother married again.

Nell was a plumber's daughter,
Aye, Nell was a plumber's lass.
She ran like mad to fetch her dad
When she smelt an escape of gas.

Dad went upstairs with a lighted match
Singing 'Grannie's Song at Twilight."
We heard a crack, and Dad came back
Through next-door neighbour's sky-light!

Years have rolled on since that happened,
Time soothed the widow's pain,
One morning she met an engineer
And the girl's mother married again.

Nell was an engineer's daughter
She once took his mid-day meal,
He was oiling a shaft, and she stood and laughed
When his boko got caught in a wheel.

He was picked from the ground, whirled round and round.
And poor Nell started shrieking.
He came down with a smack on the back of his back
And his oil-can started leaking!

Years have rolled on-no, I've said that once...!

Then Nell fell in love with a sailor
And married a jolly Jack Tar.
He had eyes of blue, he was sixty-two,
But you know what sailors are!

He'd a son called John who was twenty-one,
And it's very strange to say
He fell in love with Nell's mother
And married her right away.

Now Nell is her mother's new mother,
Her father becomes her own son,
Her mother's first child is her father-in-law,
And her daughter's the son-of-a-gun.

Her mother's first cousin looks after Nell's child,
For they found on the day of its birth
That its uncle's step-sister's its grandmother's aunt
And I'm the biggest liar on earth!

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