FLOODS, FLOODS, GLORIOUS FLOODS

Nick Battle & the Gravel Road Trust were host to the 4th Annual Blues Buster on 8 Feb at St Andrew’s Church

Nick Battle Photo (rt): Mark Millington, courtesy Decca Music Group

Soul singer and TV presenter David Grant headlined along with Radio 2 favourites The Open Road and writer/comedian Paul Kerensa (Miranda/Not Going Out)

It was an amusing but moving fund raising evening for The Gravel Road Trust. The Trust was founded in 2010 by Nick Battle, who lost his first wife to cancer in 2003, aims to engage with those walking the hard road of terminal illness.

One of the highlights of the evening was the performance by The Gravel Road Chorus, ‘a stout body of men dedicated to singing songs in a somewhat frivolous manner’

Dressed in evening suits, dickie bows and wellies, the GR Chorus brought the house down with a rendition of ‘THE BALLAD OF GREEN STREET’ a ditty sung to the tune of Flanders and Swan’s Hippopotamus Song with

timely lyrics written by Chorleywood Resident James McKechnie.

THE BALLAD OF GREEN STREET

James McKechnie © Star Street Music Ltd 2014 (With apologies to Flanders & Swann)

Away up on Green Street a motorist paused

Surveying the great lake below

The vast stretch of water the downpour had caused

Was lit by the night’s starry show

Ought he to reverse or perhaps he should stay?

and where were his wellies today?

But Mr Smythe-Brown of Chorleywood Town

To himself was inclined to say

Floods, floods, glorious floods

Nothing quite like it for making cars duds

But my four-by-four

Has done this before

So foot to the floor

Through glorious mud!

VERSE 2

Vaguely concerned that he’d be a headline

If he carried on down this incline

It was so hard to tell water’s depth at a glance

But determined the car should advance

All went well ‘til the engine went splat

And turning the key it was F L A T!

Raised eyes to the skies with a look of surprise

To the car close behind he did cry

Floods, floods, glorious floods

Nothing quite like it for making cars duds

So NO, don’t you follow

Me down to the hollow

Call Heronsgate Motors

for a tow-truck instead

VERSE 3

An eerie silence befell this strange scene

As our driver mulled what had just been

The price to pay & what Emma would say

& how would he make his Golf day?

Later that day he wrote to the Highways

Then an old song came into his brain

‘bout a regular army of Hippopotami’

All singing this haunting refrain:

Floods, floods, glorious floods

Nothing quite like it for making cars duds

That salesman was fibbin’

Sayin’ the car could go swimmin’

It’s not an amphibian & never was!