Once a favourite requested of Cliff, it doesn’t seem to serve the same amusement with today’s younger crowd wanting less of a story than an immediate punchline.  Still, once in a while someone will ask.  It was composed by Bernard Wrigley sometime in the early 1970’s, as I have been told.

Jos. Morneault

Gas man, coal man, water board, and bloke who mends the telly,
They’re all the same to Harold’s wife, the famous Knocking Nellie.
She handles all her creditors. For years she’s had no bills,
But of Harrys, Joes and Teddy boys, I know she gets her fill.

Last week when Harold’s out at work, she’s upstairs with a bloke.
He’s a football pool collector and he’s Nellie’s latest poke.
She’s got his vest and trousers off; she’s asking him for more,
But then she hears her husband dear come walking in the door.

She bungs her lover in wardrobe door and then she shouts, “Oh, crumbs!”
For hanging out of the wardrobe door were the pools collector’s plums.
When Harold he came up the stairs and says, “Now, hello, dear.
The boss gave me the day off work—and what’s these dangling here?”

Well Nellie’s seen this all before and a very good tale she tells:
“Well I’ve just been out shopping and I’ve bought these couple of bells,
But they’re not of the ringing kind; in fact, they’re just a joke.”
So Harold lifts his finger up and gives the bells a poke.

Now Harold keeps on poking and agrees the bells are dead,
And the bloke inside the wardrobe’s going a funny shade of red.
Harold said the bells’ll ring if he clouts them with a hammer,
And Nellie sitting on the bed can hardly raise a stammer.

Now Harold hits ’em once and twice but still the bells won’t ring.
So Harold raises up his hammer to have a final swing.
He swore to make the bells go “ding”. By George, he wasn’t wrong,
For bloke inside the wardrobe cried, “For Christ’s sake, ding, ding, dong!”