Old Moe was known to everyone, who lived at Lomerra Green,
Trudging the lanes and cobbled streets he often could be seen.
To part you from your pennies, he’d turn his hand to anything,
From mending umbrellas, to cleaning out a spout.
The umbrellas were his specialty, he mended the ribs a treat,
Though sometimes opening the brolly, they got stuck and you got wet.
Likewise when wanting the brolly down, after the rain had gone,
Before you’d worked the miracle, most likely you’d be home.
Moe’s favourite job of mending was “Ye Olde Weather House,”
You know – where the chap comes out in the rain, and the sun brings out his spouse.
Old Moe could make them work all right, but he’d have his bit of fun,
He’d make the old woman come out in the rain and the chap come out in the sun.
Came the time he bought a grinding wheel, and started sharpening scissors,
He stood in the street and ground and ground until the screeching gave you the dithers.
And when he thought them sharp enough he’d bring them to your door,
But often they were only half the size that they had been before.
Still more ambitious he became, he started mending clocks,
They said his front room deafened you, with other folks tick tocks.
Each morning he’d start upon his rounds, pushing his old bassinette,
With clocks and things he’d mended, and grinding wheel all set.
And when he brought a clock back, and you asked how much it was,
He’d say two pence if it don’t go right, but three pence if it does.
Now the clock at Mrs. Green’s was old, a grandfather all right,
It had a moon upon its face that only showed a night.
But when Old Moe had mended it, and fiddled about with the moon,
It didn’t show at night, but shone fair bright at noon.
A cuckoo clock my mother had, but it had stopped cuckooing
So Old Moe took it home to find what the works inside were doing.
At the end of the week he brought it back, he was looking sort of moonstruck,
And so were we, when we heard Cuckoo, for what it said was OO-CUCK.
Back to Doris’s original version.
Copyright Doris Darbyshire