The Thirty-Foot Trailer
The old ways are changing, you cannot deny,
The day of the traveller is over;
There's nowhere to go and there's nowhere to bide,
So farewell to the life of the rover.
Chorus (after each verse):
Farewell to the tent and the old caravan,
To the tinker, the Gypsy, the travelling man
And farewell to the thirty-foot trailer.
Farewell to the cant and the travelling tongue,
Farewell to the Romany talking,
The buying and selling, the old fortune telling,
The knock on the door and the hawking.
You've got to move fast to keep up with the times
For these days a man cannot dander;
It's a bylaw to say you must be on your way
And another to say you can't wander.
Farewell to the besoms of heather and broom,
Farewell to the creel and the basket,
For the folks of today they would far sooner pay
For a thing that's been made out of plastic.
Farewell to the pony, the cob, and the mare
Where the reins and the harness are idle;
You don't need a strap when you're breaking up scrap
So farewell to the bit and the bridle.
Farewell to the fields where we've sweated and toiled
At pulling and shoving and lifting,
They'll soon have machines and the travelling queens
And their menfolk had better be shifting.