By Dave Boulton January 1983
In Notre Dame belfry ‘twas peaceful and still
In fact ‘twere as dead as a Dodo
And there wasn’t a peep cause the bats was asleep
Upside down and so was Quasimodo
Now He’d been employed 40 years man and boy
On retiring he’d set all his hopes
And they’d said he could go once he’d found a new bloke
For the job and just showed him the ropes
In his dream he’s retired and he’s being served wine
Spragged out on a floral divan
By some buxom mamselle who it’s easy to tell
Is the hunch-front of Not-ere-Dame
She’s stroking his ‘ead with her nails painted red
Both her eyes and her teeth emerald green
She’s just kissing his chest through the ‘oles in his vest
When this pillock walks into his dream
Sad to say the spell breaks and he quickly awakes
And finds that he’s cuddling his coat
He offers his hand to the pushy young man
Shakes him cordially by the throat
“Ave you come for the job?” the young lad gives a nod
You can see things have come to a crunch
But he manages “Yes, but how did you guess?”
To which Quasi replies “Just a hunch”
“Well you’d best show me what you can do while you’re here”
So young what’s his name jumps on the bells
And e’s swinging around 80 foot off the ground
Will the bloody thing ring? Will it ‘ell! Look!
It requires concentration and some calculation
Not poncing about like a vandal,
You must inter-relate campanologist’s weight
To his height and his angle of dangle”
When Quas sounds the gong it ties knots in’t lads tongue
And his fillings changes places in’t din
Even ducks on the Seine go insane with the pain
And the bats in the belfry break …..formation
As the chimes die Quas says “you have a try”
And the lad swings the bells like he’s showed
It’s trajectory true, it was doing Mach 2
When it smacked him a top o’ the nose
But regardless of t’pain the young chap tries again
Exactly as shown by “his nibs”
And in t’next three tries he achieves two black eyes
A torn ear’ole and three bosted ribs
Then the lad strikes t’bell with a blow forged in hell
Using all of his courage and power
And t’bell rings out loud, he steps back looking proud
Then he trips and falls out of the tower
Quas goes to t’fenetre so he can see bettre
And the lad’s clearly come a right cropper
As he landed at t’feet of a Johndarme on t’ beat
Which if you don’t know is froggy for copper
Well t’ Johndarme looks up to where Quasi is stood
And shouts “Who eez thees personne please tell”
Quasi say’s sorry John je ne sais pas his nomme
But I’m sure the face rings a bell