Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Willy the waterman

Options
  • 01-12-2015 10:11pm
    #1
    Carlow
    Registered Users Posts: 13 ✭


    Hi. When I was a very small child in the early fifties, in Carlow, my granny used to recite a little verse concerning willy the waterman, who apparently had a wide range of skills. He could "whistle and fart, drive a cart and stop sheep going out in a gap", all simultaneously. But there was much more than that, which I can no longer recall.
    Can anyone help?


Comments

  • Options
    #2
    OldGoat
    Registered Users Posts: 12,633 ✭✭✭✭OldGoat


    Thats a new one to me. Perhaps your nan made it up just for you. :)

    I'm older than Minecraft goats.



  • Options
    #3
    ytpe2r5bxkn0c1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 32,688 ✭✭✭✭ytpe2r5bxkn0c1


    I've never come across it but there is an American expression about canny politicians who can "whistle and fart and drive a cart" all at the one time.


  • Options
    #4
    Carlow
    Registered Users Posts: 13 ✭Carlow


    As far as I can remember it started of with "willy the waterman was a good ............."


  • Options
    #5
    Jellybaby1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Google doesn't throw anything up at all. It could have been as OG said, something your nan either thought up, or something her own family used to recite. Never heard of it myself, but then I am a true blue Jackeen anyway.


  • Options
    #6
    Carlow
    Registered Users Posts: 13 ✭Carlow


    Well I had already searched google myself, so no surprises there. I just thought someone else of my age group might know something. And no, there's no chance whatsoever that my grandmother made this up.


  • Advertisement
  • Options
    #7
    OldGoat
    Registered Users Posts: 12,633 ✭✭✭✭OldGoat


    The drawback of asking your age-peers questions is that most of us have the memory capacity of a banana. :o

    I'm older than Minecraft goats.



  • Options
    #8
    Rubecula
    Registered Users Posts: 8,551 ✭✭✭Rubecula


    And I am a Sassenach so no help here I am afraid

    However it may have been Willy the Waterboy

    https://mainlynorfolk.info/steeleye.span/songs/bayofbiscay.html


  • Options
    #9
    Jellybaby1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    Carlow, your granny only had the rude version of the song.


  • Options
    #10
    looksee
    Registered Users Posts: 28,131 ✭✭✭✭looksee


    I just sacrificed 2 minutes of my life to listen to WtW on that link Rube. Well found, but its 2 minutes I will never get back. :(


  • Options
    #11
    Jellybaby1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    I skipped along two minutes and then managed to listen for 30 seconds before giving up. Sorry Carlow, not my thang I'm afraid.


  • Advertisement
Advertisement