I wanted to be the Bob Dylan of Ealing, and make my mark,
as a disenchanted emigrant of that London borough,
but couldn’t play the mouth organ, and the guitar barely at all.

My old English da, who’d wed a woman from the Irish county of Co Donegal,
hated my singing, preferring the forgotten Lancashire tenor Tom Burke,
son of an Irish coal miner.

He even wrote a book about him called The Lancashire Caruso,
still available on Amazon, which is a bloody big river.

‘Don’t give up on your dreams,’ he would say, ‘Tom is watching over you.’
He was a great wit, my old man, cracking jokes like the above,
and writing panto scripts, while my ma went out to nurse.
All the patients loved little Philomena, from the town of Ballybofey,
who often read my tea leaves, saying, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,
I can see you being talked about by musical greats,
so don’t worry that your teachers said you were thick.’

God love her, she was right, and it came about thus.

Ma had helped her erring cousin, Michael, the family’s black sheep,
who was a terrible boozer, encouraging him to sing his humorous songs,
to American tourists in Dublin and Limerick.

I stayed with him in Donegal’s Glencolumbkille, that folk village still
clinging to the Gaelic tongue, hoping some of his skill would rub off,
where he dressed as a harp-playing fairy – well, the Americans liked it.
He sang in a packed Slattery’s bar, backed by yours truly on guitar,
which got a laugh, even before he opened his mouth.

His offering went thus:
‘O’Halloran’s donkey carried a monkey,
and they starred in Murphy’s travelling circus,
but the jungle creature sneezed and covered his mount with mucous,
so a naughty ape bestowed a kiss, then ran her a bath.

‘She expected to be seduced, among the soapy suds,
but all he got was a hit over the head with a funny-shaped duck.’

A few boos rang out, but a party of students laughed fit to burst,
and it proved popular on the underground Alternative Songs Network.

So I gave up my ambition to be a pretend Dylan,
and formed a comical duo with my uncle,
coached by my ma, who’d often quipped, ‘I never understood why you wanted to
sing like that fellow Bob, his voice is like rusty nails on a metal floor.’

We had some success on the festival circuit, but after we stupidly released
a song called The Busker, were threatened with civil prosecution,
by a famous duo, whose name rhymes with carbuncle.

My uncle ran off to Donegal, with a false beard,
dispensing fairy tales in Glencolumbkille, but I stuck it out,
and would often, waking from a troubled sleep, ponder my fate,
until one night I met the spirit of my da’s hero, Tom Burke.

‘Hello, to you,’ he said, sitting on my bed, ‘son of the man who restored my reputation,
don’t take to the bottle like me, when faced with creditors and legal robbers.

‘Go for a walk in the park, and don’t worry about any pursuing legal eagle,
representing that famous harmonious duo.’

So off I went and, to my shock, saw a man carrying a barking little animal,
chased by a distinguished-looking chap, who shouted,
‘Stop that fellow, he’s nicking my dog!’

So I stuck my foot out, and the athletic canine leapt out of his kidnapper’s grasp,
into the arms of his owner, a famous lawyer called Gervase Gabriel.

He sobbed with relief, ‘Thank you for rescuing little Rufus.
Being of a rare breed, he would have proved quite valuable, to pet peddlers.

‘Come, let us go to Flattery’s where I’ll buy you a pint of stout.’
 

He told me how he’d championed the downtrodden; indeed he’d saved his wife,
Marie Bulstrode-Blog, from being deported back to El Salvador,
for singing songs criticizing a US president whom everyone calls a right chump.

Chased by the CIA, Gervase enlisted the help of elder brother, Bunty Bullingham-blog,
or Bloggers, to his chums, who, as a former agent of Her Majesty’s Secret Service,
hated the Americans for outing him as gay, constituting, according to them,
‘An obvious threat to the UK-US alliance.’

Marie kissed Gervase’s cheek, telling me, ‘It doesn’t matter that we’re officially married,
he’s homo-erotical or bi-something, so has a soft spot for the marginalised.

'Darling, I’m glad you invited your fellow pupil, Bloggers,
to our wedding, which we never consummated,’ bestowing me a knowing look.

Her English wasn’t fully conversational, but still managed to praise Gervase’s legal expertise.

‘It was fate I suppose, or the grace of God, that he spotted me playing the chirango,
that little Latin American guitar.

‘He said it reminded him of a singer from England, called George Formby,
who toured south Africa with his wife Beryl, encountering hatred for their
stance against racial prejudice, while delighting fans with
his consummate playing of the banjo-ukulele.
 

‘Yes,’ I concurred, ‘he was a Lancashire lad, like my dad’s hero, Tom Burke.’

I told him my tale, and he advised, ‘You should stimulate public sympathy.’
So I took up my guitar and mouth organ, backed by my uncle, in disguise,
with Fran joining us on our daily street concerts, strumming her little instrument.

We sang, ‘We’ve been sold down the river, but we’re not all a’quiver,
for all we did was a silly parody, and I’m sure Paul and Art wouldn’t mind,
as, although some might not agree, we’re one of a kind.’

The media, sensing a good feel-good story, promoted our cause,
and who should find out about our plight, but a star of rock and folk, christened Robert Zimmerman.

He popped in Flattery’s Bar, saying, ‘I’ve had a word with those two famous singers,
and they’ve called off the law, but only if you support them on tour.

‘You’ll be the comical warm-up act, for you really are the worst pretend Bob Dylan,
of anywhere, never mind Ealing.’

‘Oh, can you ask that lady, the one with a double-barrelled name,
if she’ll play on my next album?’

That night I again met the ghost of that forgotten singer my father had championed,
and said ‘Thanks for looking out for me, you old soak.’

He laughed and sang, I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen and The Mountains of Mourne,
which woke up Marie, who accompanied him on her little chirango,
and I fell asleep to the tenor voice of Tom Burke, The Lancashire Caruso.