swings and roundabouts?

[lamble]

where does the saying swings and roundabouts come from?

[allen ives]

I'm pretty sure it was popularised by a folksy English poets, maybe Kipling or A E Bates, and the line that's buzzing round my head is on the lines of 'what I loses on the roundabouts I makes up on the swings'..... Anyway, I'm on the case, and I'll post another answer once I find it, which of course is now driving me barmy....

[allen ives]

Roundabouts and Swings, by Robert Chalmers. Can't find an on-line version of it, but if you want me to put the full text on here (it's only about 5 verses of 4 lines each), post yourself an answer saying yes you do, and I will....

[allen ives]

Sorry. Correction, it was Patrick R Chalmers....

[firefly]

Perhaps it's a shortening of the phrase 'What you gain on the swings you lose on the roundabouts' - in other words, gains and losses...

[lamble]

yes. can i please have a copy of this poem up here please. thanks!

[allen ives]

Here you are lamble. And I didn't say it was a GREAT poem, now did I... And neither can I find any reference to the poet in any of the many reference books jamming up my shelves. So here, for what it's worth, it is... If the line-endings don't come out in this pass, I'll do it again with hypertext to split it properly....

Roundabouts and Swings, by Patrick R Chalmers It was early last September night, of Framlingham on Sea And was fair-day come tomorrow and the time was after tea, And I met a painted caravan a-down a dusty lane, A Pharoah with his wagons, coming jolt and creak and strain. A cheery cove and sun-burnt, bold of eye and wrinkled up, And beside him on the splash-board sat a brindled terrier pup, And a lurcher wise as Solomon and lean as fiddle strings Was jogging in the dust among his roundabouts and swings. 'Good day' said he, 'Good day' said I, 'and how do you find things go? 'And what's the chance of millions when you runs a travelling show?' 'I find,' said he, 'things very much as I have always found, 'For mostly they goes up and down or else goes round and round.' Said he 'the job's the very spit of what it always were, 'It's bread and bacon mostly when the dog don't catch a hare, 'But looking at it broad, and while it ain't no merchant kings, 'What's lost upon the roundabouts, we pulls up on the swings.' 'Good luck', said he, 'good luck' said I, 'you've put it past a doubt, 'And keep that lurcher on the road, the gamekeepers is out,' He thumped upon the footboard and he lumbered on again, To meet a gold-dust sunset down the owl-light in the lane. And the moon she climbed the hazels while the night-jar seemed to spin That Pharoah's wisdom more again, his sooth of lose and win, 'For up and down and round' says he 'goes all appointed things, 'And losses on the roundabouts means profits on the swings.' transcribed from a BBC cassette, 'Poetry Please', (c) 1988, ZBBC 1034.

Hope this helps.

[allen ives]

Roundabouts and Swings, by Patrick R Chalmers

It was early last September night, of Framlingham on Sea

And was fair-day come tomorrow and the time was after tea,

And I met a painted caravan a-down a dusty lane,

A Pharoah with his wagons, coming jolt and creak and strain.

A cheery cove and sun-burnt, bold of eye and wrinkled up,

And beside him on the splash-board sat a brindled terrier pup,

And a lurcher wise as Solomon and lean as fiddle strings

Was jogging in the dust among his roundabouts and swings.

'Good day' said he, 'Good day' said I, 'and how do you find things go?

'And what's the chance of millions when you runs a travelling show?'

'I find,' said he, 'things very much as I have always found,

'For mostly they goes up and down or else goes round and round.'

Said he 'the job's the very spit of what it always were,

'It's bread and bacon mostly when the dog don't catch a hare,

'But looking at it broad, and while it ain't no merchant kings,

'What's lost upon the roundabouts, we pulls up on the swings.'

'Good luck', said he, 'good luck' said I, 'you've put it past a doubt,

'And keep that lurcher on the road, the gamekeepers is out,'

He thumped upon the footboard and he lumbered on again,

To meet a gold-dust sunset down the owl-light in the lane.

And the moon she climbed the hazels while the night-jar seemed to spin

That Pharoah's wisdom more again, his sooth of lose and win,

'For up and down and round' says he 'goes all appointed things,

'And losses on the roundabouts means profits on the swings.'

transcribed from a BBC cassette, 'Poetry Please', (c) 1988, ZBBC 1034