Saturday 28 July 2007

Nursery rhyme speaks of English floods

Children know the flood

It would appear there is nothing else happening in the world apart from the floods in Gloucestershire. BBC News 24 is offering such pervasive coverage even my head is flooded with the news.

In a moment of flood panic, I felt some calm as I remembered a nursery rhyme my mother taught me.

It would appear Gloucester (pronounced Glosster) has been flood-prone from time immemorial, at least a picture in c.1725 shows Johannes Kip's West prospect of Gloucester, emphasising the causeway and bridges traversing the water meadows of the floodplain - a truth so well documented that it was taught to children in a nursery rhyme but ignored to the peril and suffering of many today.

Here goes.

Doctor Foster,

Went to Gloucester,

In a shower of rain,

He fell in a puddle,

Right up to his middle,

And swore never to go to Gloucester again.

You tell me if that is not about rain in Gloucestershire creating a flood that would have been at least 1 metre (3 feet) high.

If only more people were as smart as Doctor Foster, a lot of grief would have been saved.

Out of the mouth of babes ...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

nearly 300 years ago, thats fun

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