I have mentioned this item in the past, but I discovered over a long period of time that Charlie got the name wrong, in that ‘Jean’, who lived at her parents Bed and Breakfast in Sun Street, Ffestiniog, a predominately Welsh speaking area, was actually called ‘Jenny’.  Charlie did not know that, in ‘Welsh’ Jennie sounds like Jean.  I did track her down to the house in Sun Street, but she had sadly died some 10 years earlier, the house then (2009) contained relatives and I was told that Jenny was a confirmed flirt all her life, but who died childless.

And another Editors note, I typed up these poems properly, but this wordpress website insists on putting a double line space between individual lines of type and unless someone has a solution for that, this unfortunately is the result.

                                     Jean

 

There’s the pretty girl

And the witty girl

And the girl that bobs her hair;

          The girl that’s pert

          And the girl that’s a flirt

And the girl with a baby stare.

 

Now I know a girl who resides in Wales’

          The prettiest girl I’ve seen,

Whose beauty of feature, like Cumbria’s dales

Are such as is read of in fairy tales-

          And that girl’s name is Jean.

 

We were three care free cyclists on touring bent,

          Three cyclists young and keen;

Who into the Vale of Ffestiniog went,

And found that additional charm was lent

          By means of a lassie called Jean!

 

There’s one of our trio called ‘Blackberry Joe’

          A lanky youth, and lean;

Who confided to us in tones so low

Of his love for a lassie that all of us know

And that girl’s name is Jean! 

 

 

There’s old fashioned Tommy, a bachelor shy

          With girl’s he was never seen;

Who whispered to us as he sat by

Of his love for a lass who had caught his eye

          And that girl’s name is Jean!

 

Now I am a chap of rather dull wit,

          Wherever girl’s have been;

But one there is who made rather a hit-

And captured my heart something more than a bit

          And that girl’s name is Jean!!!

 

There we sat dreaming youthful dreams –

          Our knowledge of love was green;

Vainly plotting and scheming schemes

Through not a bit of intelligence gleams

          For the sake of a lassie named Jean!

 

Companions keen on a cycling tour,

          Happy and serene;

And now we’re enemies; though I’m sure

That always a woman was man’s undoer

          Pretty girls like Jean!

 

So follow the moral, cyclists all,

          And know by what you’ve seen;

Stand with your backs against the wall,

And fight resolved that you never will fall

          When on the scene pops Jean!  

                                                                            New Year Tour 1926