Southend U3A

A Step into the Unknown (2) - Joan Bond

January 2013

I have just been watching a tale of the highest interest about Kate who didst not feel able to love her boisterous husband. Her father bought him for her as she was so rude and a complete shrew to all and no one would take her for a bride. Being the eldest daughter, no other sister could marry before she was safely wed as that was the way it was . . .

Wouldst I not have been delighted to have been betrothed to a Richard Burton with a castle and servants to do my will and the washing, cook the grub and find myself bedecked with jewels. Instead of going to the local church, which had been bombed, so was mostly held together by asbestos sheets, in a borrowed dress and had to make my own flowers and by my troth even cooked the mash with the corned beef for the marriage banquet.

I yearned for a marriage of true minds, admit impediments, after love is not love when its alteration finds. I need a happy breed of men, my precious stone set in a silver sea, not one up, one down with a kitchen over the bath and nowhere to put the pram. The council were no help, they hadst to house the folk from outer shores who needest comfort and had more to offer, like doing all the farm work at a cheaper rate.

When to the session of sweet silent thought, I summon up sweet memories of the past, I sigh the lack of many things I sought but realise my wants are second place. I think of thee dear boy, all losses are restored and sorrows end.

I think about my future and decide that to be or not to be is it nobler in the mind to suffer or to stretch out and improve the world. So I started another world war; the folk from outer shores went home and we had a choice of accommodation. I wrote these words to celebrate that on the seventeenth we were at last content.

This special day,what means it thus

Loves labour lost, nay gained I say, and he who looks to Henry five will fight again on Crispins day.

Alas poor Yorick out of his skull, like Romeo, wherefore was he when Macbeth's wife was wringing hands because her Hamlet was not to be.

Into the breach once more, says Dick, my steed, my steed where does he lie I'd give my kingdom for a piece of that Merchant of Venice's pie.

Then just a portia'n if you must, but no blood let until Twelfth night or Much Ado will be the case and leave us in a sorry plight.

This drivel on our William's plays disguises facts I guess you know. The title of the Seventeenth was really 'ard to do you know!