Poet
I didn’t pop the question and I didn’t buy the ring,
She said “you men are all the same you only want one thing”.
I said “if I denied it I would surely be a liar,
Its true I only want one thing, but what do you desire”.
She said “I want a modest mansion with gardens front and rear,
And a gardener to tend them when the weeds appear.
I want a spacious kitchen with every new device,
And a cook to keep it tidy and make me something nice”.
“I want a shiny limousine with a chauffeur in the front,
And I want a horse called Whisky for when I join the hunt.
And then I want three children two girls and a boy,
And I also want a nanny for when the kids annoy”.
“I want a dress allowance and a Debenhams account,
And I also want a cheque book for writing large amounts.
I want a maid to dress me and pass me my perfume,
And a butler to fuss over me when I walk into a room”.
“I want to go to Paris to choose the best couture,
And a husband with a good career to make me feel secure.
I want him to be faithful buy me flowers by the bunch,
So that I can hold my head up with the other wives who lunch”.
“I want a sailing yacht and a villa in Mustique,
And a visit to my hairdresser at least three times a week,
I want a nice white wedding and a big gold wedding ring,
But you men are all the same you only want one thing”.
By now I was caressing the tenner in my jeans,
As I sneaked off to the pub and left her to her dreams.
As I sat there with my pint my head began to sing,
You men are all the same you only want one thing.
ABOUT MALCOLM WHYMAN
From a young age, writing was an attempt to resolve the mysteries of life. Reading other people’s work was an important part of that.
Boredom could a problem, which in my case, was offset by the library and the cinema. Leading one to contemplate that marriage was perhaps the default position in life. And so it was that, as a young man, it was through wedded bliss that I sought my salvation. I was mightily disappointed! Not least because my sexual expectations were far from fulfilled.
Two years and two attempts at a meaningful career later, my marriage was at an end. I found myself driving a crane in a London scrapyard and suffering from a debilitating depression.
Back in Nottingham and among friends, I eventually recovered and ever the optimist embarked on marriage once again, with much the same results as the first time. Only this time I was overwhelmed by a surfit of sex.
All this domestic chaos resulted in the outline of my book, ‘The Onion Peeler’. Throwing caution to the wind, I hitched down to Cornwall and a new career as a craft jeweller. But it also gave me the opportunity to complete the first draft of my Novel.
The end of the tourist season saw me broke and looking for work. An offer of a couple of weeks work at a scenery firm in Nottingham found me back home again and taken on for a couple of seasons by the scenery firm.
A contretemps with the management of the scenery firm saw me back on the cobbles again and contemplating fifteen years of work with nothing to show for it.
I barely owned the clothes I stood up in, little knowing at the time, that things were about to change for the better. Via a short stint in a junk shop, I was about to embark on a career in the antique shipping trade
Money was still tight in the seventies, mortgages were difficult, to get and bank loans even harder. Getting a wedge to start up a business was almost impossible.
Meeting Tony in the junk shop was nothing short of a miracle.
Tony had money, contacts and a car. It was said at the time, that all a buccaneering spirit needed to get into the antique shipping business, was a car, a roof rack and a tank full of petrol.
Tony had all those things and more, he was probably at that time, one of the smartest seventeen year olds in the country. From almost a standing start, within two years we were rich. Big house, fancy cars, continental holidays and expensive dinners, the usual indulgences of those with more money than sense. So It would have continued had Tony not got the creative bug.
Our nemesis was the first commercial pottery in Nottingham. Its capacity to consume money was prodigious and despite a huge injection of cash, from a legacy left to Tony by his father, it was to no avail and we went bankrupt.
We were rescued by a phenomenal rise in the price of gold and silver. So for nearly two years we became bullion dealers and made enough money to set up a shipping business in America.
The nature of our business was such that it allowed me to spend time on music and writing. Unitil now, in semi-retirement, I can concentrate on those things full time.