Percy the parrot flew away
from his pigeon loft eyrie,
where he’d been mistaken for a racing bird.
He bagged a lift from a Jumbo jet, piloted by Bert Smithbottom,
a native of the Lancashire town of Billycan-Boothroyd.
The plane’s great propulsion blew squirrel feathers in the park,
as a referee vainly tried to blow his frozen whistle.
The mischievous bird stopped the game by pecking a big hole
in the egg-shaped ball.
Being rather loose, he dropped his load on a comic
doing an Irish impression, saying, ‘At all, at all.’
Over in the town’s mental hospital, scrabble players
argued over the word ‘Fiddleflark’.
‘That’s a great word, tha knows’, remarked Micky Macklefect,
an Irishman obsessed with dialect.
‘You are a funny patient,’ commented Jimmy the nurse,
brother of the above-mentioned pilot,
wheeling his drugs trolley.
‘By the way, have you seen my parrot?’
‘Yes,’ said Micky, ‘I’ve been teaching him to speak reet Lanky,
as in the dialect of the English county of Lancashire.’
Alarmed, Percy flew off, to be hit by an egg-shaped ball.
‘It’s that bird again!’ shouted the chairman of
The Buffington Bashers Rugby club.
He was trying to blend in, by looking ‘reet Lancasheer’,
but was a cheat and con man, operating under an assumed name, Charles Chicklefall, his original non de plume, Cyril Clacklady,
being known throughout the rugby union.
But Percy landed on his shoulder, squawking,
‘Aw reet, old cock? Can I peck at your pie?’
The amazed chap answered, ‘Yes, if you teach me how to
speak reet Lanky, so I can blend in down the
working men’s club.’
Charles bribed Percy to imitate referees in exchange for
expensive bird seeds, a particular avian treat.
He would squawk, ‘You’re offside!’ in the accent of the locality,
causing confusion on the pitch.
Back on the ward Micky sang Lancashire songs,
The Rawtenstall Annual Fair and The Mistress of Middlemitch.
Sally followed it with the Irish classic ‘Will ye Come to the Bower?’ saying, ‘That was written by Thomas Moore,
your country’s national poet.
‘Sing that, and I’ll accompany you by tapping my feet.’
‘I wish I could,’ he said, ‘for, since I came to this land
I’ve forgotten my past.
‘Every night I got ‘pished’, trying to speak like the locals,
which sent me round the twist.’
‘Let’s escape from here and take the bird that talks colloquially,
he’ll keep us amused, if nowt else, parroting so eloquently.’
The bird in question appeared, squawking in Gaelic,
‘Go raibh maith agat,’ stifling a belch, muttering,
‘this hospital food’s crap,’
adding, ‘Didn’t you know I’m multi-lingual?’
‘Anyway, I’ve escaped from that fellow who got me in trouble
for imitating an official.’
The pair of them eloped to Micky’s homeland,
where Buffington Bashers were playing – led by
Charles Chicklefall.
At the match against the dishonest man ran off with
the takings – 1,000 Euros.
Micky and Sally were furious, but their feathered friend
heeded Micky’s call.
Jimmy’s brother, flying his Jumbo, spotted a familiar
green bird carrying the stolen loot, which he’d retrieved
from a red-faced chairman, by swooping on him while
he sat in a rather draughty public convenience.
The pilot flew down to the rescue, as Chicklefall was about to
spear Percy with a harpoon, stolen from a fishing fleet.
‘Thanks,’ he gasped, landing on Jim’s wing,
just before the thief could shoot.
The talking avian squawked, ‘Thanks for being so hospitable!’
‘You’re welcome, ‘answered a rueful pilot, ‘for my brother
wouldn’t half miss his bird who talks reet Lanky.
‘He regards you as a veritable genius!’
His host added, ‘You can fly, so why don’t you take over?’
and fell asleep.
Percy squawked, ‘I should have stayed in the hospital!’
Jimmy muttered, ‘Stick with me, ‘tha’ll be aw reet!’
