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Edie's Last Ride
By Gary Hogg
She was a lovely old lass was Aunt Edie
And it fair brings a tear to me eye
‘Cos she had such a passion for living
You’d think the last thing she’d do was to die
She was fit as a lop was old Edie
And was always so kind and polite
Doing favours and shopping for neighbours
On the go from morning till night
The sea air, she’d said, had been good for her health
She took it in every day in deep breaths
In fact, the folks of the town were so healthy
The undertaker, poor lad, starved to death
When she got into her nineties she started to slow
She always said it would happen one day
She was put in a wheelchair, ‘cos her legs were no use
Well, no use as legs anyway
But she still got about as best as she could
There was nothing would hold the lass back
All her dusting was done when the home help got there
And she’d even been round with the vac
She used to bowl herself out and sit at the gate
She was fond of her yackety-yack
She would talk to the folks on their way to the shops
And then catch them all on the way back
She was famous in Amblemouth, Edie
There was some people one day walking past
They said “You must be the oldest inhabitant?”
She says “No, he died the year afore last”
She was a mine of information was Edie
She remembered things most would forget
I said “Have you lived in Amblemouth all of your life?”
She said “No Pet, I haven’t, ....not yet”
One Monday at her lunch club up at the Mem.
In her wheelchair on account of her knees
It was roast lamb and Jersey potatoes
Mint sauce and a few garden peas
They had best butter to put on their taters
She says “Oooh thanks” and took a big pat
But she dropped some on the brakes of her wheelchair
She went down hill pretty quick after that
It was just when they lifted her out of the bus
And she was getting her key from her pocket
The man set her down on the path by the gate
But she shot off down the bank like a rocket
With her front wheels in the air like a dragster
Nowt to sixty in six seconds flat
With one hand trying to pull on the brake thing
And the other hanging on to her hat
She was heading for the newsagent’s window
Young Norman was out washing the sign
He shouts “Your
People’s Friend isn’t in yet”
“That’s okay,” she shouts, “Some other time!”
She spat on her hand and slowed down the left wheel
She swerved under his ladder with skill
She shouts “It’s a good job I’m not superstitious”
And accelerated off down the hill
There was a tyre-mark round the bend by the pork shop
And another up Wilkinson’s cat
A scrape down the Mobile Library
And a hedgehog, poor bugger, squashed flat
She swerved in and out of the traffic
Getting good at this cornering lark
But she still couldn’t stop, she went up the grass verge
Crossed the A1 and into the park
They found her face down in the duck pond
And they think she must somehow have flown
‘Cos her wheelchair was stuck in the railings
She’d done the last fifty yards on her own
So that’s the sad tale of Aunt Edie
But she wouldn’t want loved ones to weep
Thoughtful to the end, cos at this time of year
You can get a big bunch of flowers quite cheap
©Gary Hogg 2001
Contact: info
AT garyhogg.co.uk
Tel: 01670 361953
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