It’s A Good Thing The Horse Knew The Way Home
A Geezer’s Notebook, By Jim Foster
I have no idea where, or when, I first heard a verse or two from the many engineering songs out there, but I did. (I have to assume alcohol was involved.) One of those verses has been wandering through the empty corridors of my mind for perhaps sixty years and for no particular reason it pops up every once in a while.
One afternoon back in February I was humming away to myself (No one else cares to listen as I croon, hum or yodel, odd when you think about it because the famed Three Tenors seemed interested in me. In fact they sent an agent, a Mr. Vito from Chicago, to offer me a contract (or sent a Mr. Vito on a contract to work me over).
As I was saying, one afternoon I found myself singing this particular verse. It is one of my favourites since it involves a scantily-clad woman.
Godiva was a lady who through Coventry did ride
Upon the back of a snow white horse to show off her backside
Of all the lads along the way an engineer of course
Was the only man that noticed that Godiva rode a horse.
I looked it up and strangely enough I found it on the Internet. It is part of a multi-verse fight song engineers sing at reunions before they fall down. I know a few engineers and although I have never heard them sing, I have noticed they fall down a lot.
However it is not the engineers I am interested in, but rather, the fair lady herself, Lady Godiva.
Certainly one of the most popular women of history was the noted English horsewoman, Lady Godiva. I’m sure most of you know her. Well, I don’t mean know her personally, although there were a few of the old boys down at the legion who probably did, but I’m sure almost all of you have read about her famous naked ride through the streets of Coventry.
Riding bare-ass naked on a plough horse, a fairly popular sport in England today, was frowned upon during Britain’s Dark Ages (750– 1997 CE). It was especially taboo in Coventry, a town famous for its many cathedrals – although that might have been Westminster.
No matter, the priests and monks of the day had a hard enough time staying celibate without some trollop clip-clopping up and down the main street with all her accoutrements on display.
Of course Lady Godiva was hardly a trollop. She was a noblewoman, the wife of Leofric, Earl of Mercia and Lord of Coventry. Because of her standing in the upper class of feudal society her little problem with exhibitionism would normally be none of your business or of mine. Sometimes however, it becomes necessary to delve into a historical person’s private life in order that we may fully understand the political situation at the time. This revelation of her famous ride is for that purpose alone. If you are a perverted dolt and get some sort of sexual pleasure from picturing a naked lady astride a horse then you should be ashamed of yourself and might consider booking yourself in for a psychiatric assessment.
The original story has somehow been distorted by the telling and re-telling over the centuries until now the length of her ride and her cup size (44D) is as believable as an Arkansas UFO sighting.
As legend would have it, Lady Godiva, nee Bobbi-Jo FitzHugh, rode naked on a white horse to protest the high taxes her husband, the Earl, levied on the poor people of Coventry.
Now this could very well be true. The Earl was certainly known to be a rotter and if he were alive today would most certainly be fairly high up in the Federal Conservative Party and even higher among American Republicans.
On the other hand, she too had her little idiosyncrasies – like she was inclined to drink a wee bit. On a good day when nothing was bothering her and all seemed right with the world, she was good for a quart. But when the poor girl was troubled with self-doubt or in the throes of her thrice-monthly PMS attack, her Ladyship could knock back a forty-ounce jug in the morning before the cock crowed.
Most women of the day were able to hide their fondness for booze by filling the teapot with vodka or adding an ounce or two of gin to the water reservoir in her steam iron. Unfortunately Lady Godiva was a noblewoman and a woman of her position couldn’t just work off her frustrations with a basket of ironing or an hour or two of running a vacuum over the rug. When Milady’s cares and woes got her down and she really got into the sauce, she developed an irresistible desire to strip off her gown, her steel breast-plate and elastic support hose and parade up and down the palace halls stark naked. But then, what emancipated woman doesn’t?
More about that next week!
(Image Supplied)
