PEACEFUL STREET
Ernest Butcher  1936

Ernest Butcher  1936


If your nerves are getting frazzled and you want a nice retreat,
You should take a house and come a-living down in Peaceful Street.
It runs down from the boiler works to the timber sawing mills,
And they're digging up the roadway,
Yes they're digging up the road between with automatic drills.

There's milk in the morning, cats in the night,
"Old Moore's Almanac!" and "Fruit all ripe!".
There's singers who sing in horrible tones
And the party who come collecting rags and bones.
There's a Scot with his bagpipe and a cop with his feet,
Keeping law and order down in Peaceful Street.

When the shades of night are falling and you start to nod your head,
All the world is wrapped in slumber as you snuggle down in bed;
In nearby railway sidings you can hear the engines roar,
And a gramophone starts playing,
Yes they're playing "Rule Brittania" on the gramophone next door!

The clocks in the steeple strike through the night,
Cocks star a-crowing and the dogs all fight!
There are taxis that hoot their horrible din,
And the wind blows the lid off someone's old ash bin!
And at daybreak the factory whistles make life complete
As you just start slumbering down Peaceful Street.

But when the week is over, comes the peaceful Sabbath day,
Till someone starts to build a henhouse just across the way!
A motorbike declibes to start upon its Sunday spin,
And the leather-throated newsboys,
The leather-throated newsboys add their music to the din!

Boy Scouts in battalions, tramping about,
Blowing their bugles till their eyes drop out!
A corp of Girl Guides, in order arrayed,
And the special constabulary on parade!
The the Salvation Army, to show they're not beat,
Bust their drum each Sunday down on Peaceful Street.

It's a peaceful spot to live in, is Peaceful Street!





(Contributed by Peter Akers - November 2010)