Author: paulre

For Mr Joll

Five thousand incisions of necklace type
Five thousand glands exposed
Five thousand, or more, bits of thyroid removed
And five thousand necks reclosed.

Just think of the innumerable Spencer Wells
Just think of the swabs without end
Just imagine the rows of Michel clips
And the five thousand patients to tend.

May the goitrous patients long flock to A.2.
May their thyroids fall fast in the bowl.
May the thousands increase, Mr Joll, may you reach
(spite of students) the ten thousand goal.

Meg Rugg-Easey 1936

(Mentioned in Meg’s 1937 diary)

Jane

Jane always was a timid girl, a rather shy and timid girl,
And when she went to college she was terrified to death.
She tiptoed up the front steps, the dreadful public front steps,
Then pressed against the wall inside, and almost held her breath.

But somebody soon saw her there, standing lost and silent there
And showed her to the cloakroom where she took off coat and hat,
And after taking ages – yes, she made it take her ages –
She returned to the Common Room – she knew her way to that.

And sitting in a corner, a nice convenient corner,
She watched the others dash about and laugh and joke and yell,
And during all that first week it seems she sat in corners
And why she didn’t die there is more than she can tell.

But now she’s been at college for ages, simply ages,
And you can see her dash about and laugh and yell and joke,
And when she sees the “freshers” sitting frightened in their corners
She can never understand it,
No she cannot understand it
For she says we’re all such kindly, harmless, friendly sort of folk.

Margaret Lilian Taylor 1936