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Nell was a collier's daughter,
Innocent, sweet seventeen,
Shall I tell you the story of Nellie?,
"Yes, Tony, but keep it clean!"
Nell was a collier's daughter
With a coal-black daddy so fine
To the theatre he'd stray at the end of the day
To forget the dark toil of the mine.
Once he sat in the gallery with some of the lads,
And They started to quarrel a bit
Though it wasn't his shift, they gave him a lift,
And the collier went down in the pit.
Years have rolled on since it happened,
Time soothed the widow's pain.
Ah, but one morning she met a diver
And the girl's mother married again.
Nell was a diver's daughter,
He used to dive under the ships
He'd walk on the bed of the ocean
And tread on the fishes, and chips.
But her mother and he would never agree,
They'd quarrel for hours and hours,
Once he called her a dog so she picked up his clog,
And next came a coach filled with flowers.
Years have rolled on since it happened,
Time soothed the widow's pain.
Ah, but one morning she met a plumber
And the girl's mother married again.
Nell was a plumber's daughter,
Aye, Nell was a plumber's lass
She ran like mad for to fetch her dad
When she smelled an escape of gas.
He went upstairs with a lighted match
Singing "Granny's Song at Twilight"
They heard a crack, and her dad came back,
Through the next door neighbour's skylight.
Years have rolled on since it happened,
Time soothed the widow's pain.
Ah, but one morning she met a baker
And the girl's mother married again.
Nell was a baker's daughter,
A loafer from way down east,
And as sure as the sun used to sink in the west,
His bread used to rise with the yeast
One morning he sat on a cooking stove
That could have been much colder,
And he got three stripes for his bravery
But a long way from his shoulder.
Years have rolled on since it happened,
Time soothed the widow's pain.
Ah, but Nell fell in love with a sailor
Aye, she married a jolly jack tar
He was sixty-two, and had eyes of blue
But you know what sailors are.
He'd a son called John who was twenty-one
And it's very strange to say
That he fell in love with Nell's mother,
And he married her right away.
Now Nell is her mother's own mother,
And her father becomes her own son
Her mother's first child is her daughter-in-law,
And her sister's a son of a gun.
Nell's mother's first cousin looks after Nell's child,
And they found on the day of his birth
That his uncle's step-sister's his grandmother's aunt‹
And I'm the biggest liar on earth.
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