Story of Fanny
SHOWMAN
From Northern mountains, rising up through ancient beds
Of bonedust, iron and granite, pressed ‘tween ice and fire,
The River Effay tumbles South to East Lake
Where it dives headlong, then crawls out into moorland mire
And bog to join a Westward artery and flow
Toward the sea, where all good streams must go.
GARDENER
It swells and darkens on the plain through Sometown
Where shipwrights blaze and bend their woven frames,
Where flocks and herds get rendered down to gristle
Where children beat down weeds with vicious games
And potted families grow up square-block towers,
Boxing the dust on windows for their flowers.
SHOWMAN
Sometime, back against the flow, they swim to Thisplace
Men and wives, for peace, with babes in arms and granny.
ARCHITECT
Yet in tranquil settings evil passions lurk,
As seen by what befell Miss Adams (Fanny)
When, playing with a brother, sister and perhaps a friend,
She, Once Upon A Time, in such a place as this one, met her end.
GARDENER
Young Fanny, full of life and only twelve or thereabouts
-
No-one can quite remember - runs away to Someplace,
For a lark, one day,
ARCHITECT
where Mister Frederick Baker finds her,
Chops her into pieces, to his great disgrace,
GARDENER
They say,
ARCHITECT
and like a wolf or dog that’s lost its wits
Digs holes around the garden for her bits.
GARDENER
(Or so the Justice says,
ARCHITECT
and hangs that wicked Freddie Baker
On Christmas Eve, to pay for his outrageous garden-wrecking.)
SHOWMAN
Yet strangely, naught of Fanny has been found,
However hard we dig the ground, or plant, or lay our decking;
No scrap of evidence - no hair, or shoe, or earring or some other sliver
Comes to light – so maybe she went seaward after all, down river?
Talking of which, just at that time, The Admiralty
Changed its tack on biscuits for our boys in blue to
Chopped-up Meat in Tins.
ARCHITECT
The sailors chew and wonder
What this all might mean - this recipe so new to
H.M’s Forces.
GARDENER
Could Fanny’s end and their unpleasant ration
Be linked together in some gruesome fashion?
SHOWMAN
Che sera, sera and Plus ça change. Whatever.
There’s a throw-away we base upon this sorry tale of Fanny Slain
One hundred years ago: on sea and land, where’er our Empire trod,
GARDENER
Past subjects
ARCHITECT
and ex-objects use poor Fanny’s name in vain;
SHOWMAN
And even now in Thisplace I would say
Not many gathered here could give a Sweet FA!
(An image from the Bradford Workshops).