Jarvis Bros of Forfar - Summer Sale, 2010 (1)

Jarvis Bros

 

Many years ago I intoned the sequence of vowels in descending notes - 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o', 'u' at St John's Church choir practice under the redoubtable Claude Forster. Each verse here has rhymes following this pattern. Just as the vowels are deeply embedded in our language, so Jarvis Bros (always known as 'Jarvises') is in with the bricks of the town. That what follows here is no more than doggerel is, of course, no reflection on 'Jarvises'!

 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

And Henry Michie's coos are long away

But Jarvises, it seems is here to stay

Let's keep those Chains and Multiples at bay!

 

Lang syne when I was just a callow teen

I fancied purple troosers that I'd seen

But Chickie found my outré taste obscene

I left the shop with humdrum lovat green.

 

These days the windows I see, passing by

Are not the kind that really hold my eye

But Forfar folk know it's the place to buy

That quality's a thing that doesn't die.

 

And a' the toon is really in the know

That in the sale each bargain's sure to go

Skirt, shirt, hat, scarf and dickie bow

The carpeting you find deep down below.

 

So harking back to Henry Michie's coo

Its milk, sold mixed with water, often blue

Not all of Forfar's past was straight and true

But Jarvises is true blue, through and through.

 

 

 

Done