The Portmanteau Adventures of Mr. G. and Miss B., Part 1 “Mount Bevere”

The Vicar of Bolton-le-Sands, Lancashire, was hosting an international exhibition on industrial hoovers, and I had, as one does, visited this at the behest of Miss B, who did not want to go alone. It was something of a let-down, as several of the household names in the field wouldn’t or couldn’t be there, and the 14 acre exhibition hall the Vicar had rented for the occasion was half empty.

Disappointed that the personal prestige of many of the big names in the business – the Vicar’s wife, who was not as interested in industrial hoovers, had refused to make her world-famous scones for the occasion, which upset some of the more delicate of the invited guests – would come between us and a successful enjoyment of our weekend in the Lancaster area, we decided already on Friday afternoon that we would rent a pair of scooters and see the local sights instead, as our train back home didn’t leave until Sunday.

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Trollet / The Troll

This song — partially inspired by a continued interest on my part in working class songs, and partially by a renewed interest in the songs my mother used to sing (or at least hum) to me as a child — is to be sung to the melody of “Vind över Vindens Ängar” by Mats Paulsson, which can be found here, among other places. The observant reader will of course note that the melody would have to be played through twice in order to fit all the verses in. This can be blamed only on lack of imagination in the song’s original creator, who evidently could produce only two verses.

The song contrasts one of many ideal societies with the crass reality of Sweden. Any relation between the troll(s) in the song and the Swedish “People’s Party”, ostensibly liberal, is no coincidence.

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