BALLAD OF THE FAMOUS FIVE
Dear old Enid Blyton – I thought of you today
As I helped my eldest kid to put her books and toys away
For there upon the bookshelf, I could scarce believe my eyes
Were dozens of adventure books about your Famous Five
And it swept me backwards through the years for I had read them too
And marvelled at their bravery and deeds of derring-do
But nowadays it’s just as well that you’re not still alive
To see what time and life has done unto your Famous Five.
Young Julian was the leader with a good staunch British heart
He got a scholarship to Oxford where he studied mighty hard
He took law and criminology until that fateful day
When he suddenly discovered that crime does really pay
So he opened massage parlours up in Bradford, York and Leeds
Where fat old men and Swedish girls do foul and filthy deeds
Now he peddles dirty movies – plastic macs and whips and chains
Oh Enid love, I’m not surprised you hang your head in shame.
Georgina hated being a girl and that’s why, I suppose
She told everyone to call her George and dressed up in men’s clothes
But in our youthful innocence in those far-off distant days
We never realised that young Georgina was a Gay
She came out of the closet when she met a girl named Jill
Who is now her live-in lover in a flat in Notting Hill
And she says she’s very happy – says it’s good to be alive
The odds seemed much against it when she joined the Famous Five.
Young Anne, she was the quiet one who lived in mortal dread
Of smugglers and jewel thieves and foreigners with beards
Her nerves got taut as fiddle strings with all the stress and strain
So they put her in a madhouse for the criminally insane.
And Tim, the faithful terrier, at last ran out of luck
When he bared his teeth and argued with a forty-three ton truck
Poor Tim found out the hard way what is meant by overdrive
Farewell four-footed, furry, flattened phantom Famous Five.
Young Dick could never settle after all the things he’d seen
He was into booze and Evostick before he was thirteen
He had been dried out three dozen times when he reached twenty-two
So he went off to South Africa like all the losers do
And I’m not surprised he’s happy there – in fact it is his right
Don’t all the bad guys dress in black and the good guys dress in white?
If he stays away from black women and white rum he might survive
In that spirit of peace and freedom, much beloved by Famous Five
For the Five stood for integrity, the Five fought the good fight
When all the bad guys dressed in black and the good guys dressed in white
So nowadays dear Enid, it’s just as well you’re not alive
To see what time and live has done unto your Famous Five.