Poem "The Bus Run"

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Barbara Murray of the Belfast Education & Library Board / Holywood Arches Library
O n behalf of Ruby Purdy and has been added to the site with her permission.
The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

The Bus Run

Remember the bus runs during the war, to Monaghan or Dundalk

What you were going to smuggle home, that was all the talk

Cigarettes and butter, jewellery or cooked ham

Sweets and bars of chocolate, or a gypsy to read your palm.

Well one day we left the Hammer: the women and all their brood

The weather was wonderful, the singing very good

“Dolly’s Brae” and “Derry’s Walls”, even “Master McGra”

And the pope he wants a pooley, with your ya, ya, ya.

Then coming back across the border, the customs usual dash

Word went round, “Don’t say a thing, and don’t be singing the sash”

Faces all like angels, nothing to declare

Someone signing very low “The Londonderry Air”.

Up and down the bus they looked, trying to stare us out

When the bus was on its way, the pruck was all took out

Fags from inside stockings, cooked ham from inside skirts.

Kids had hidden rings and things in the pockets of their shirts.

Big Jenny said to Lizzie, “I got make-up to make me young”

Lizzie answered back, “For God’s sake houl your tongue

I’ve got two watches down my bra, they are good strong tickers

But my legs are in an awful mess, my butter has melted in my knickers”.

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