Old Army Songs - Those were the days!
There is an old 8th Army song from Egypt which has been running through my mind in the past few days and I just wonder if anyone knows the whole song - or even another part of it. It was - as always - bit irreverent to the reigning monarch but no one seemed to mind that - it went -
Queen Farida give us bakksheesh,
Queen Farida give us bakksheesh,
for we all love the King,
and we all love the Queen -
but we'ed rather love Farida than Farouk - Baa din !
Needless to say - this was prior to the advent of the Africa Corps with their now famous Lili Marlene
Queen Farida give us bakksheesh,
Queen Farida give us bakksheesh,
for we all love the King,
and we all love the Queen -
but we'ed rather love Farida than Farouk - Baa din !
Needless to say - this was prior to the advent of the Africa Corps with their now famous Lili Marlene
posted by Tomcann at 7:25 pm
9 Comments:
Frank -
that's the one - the longer it went on the worse it became - I'm sure Ron would know a few verses !
Gents
What an interesting thread, but I'm shocked to the core that Tom could possibly think that I would know any of the words of that scurrilous song !!!!!
Having said that.......
I decided to do some genuine research and keyed in "King Farouk bawdy song" into GOOGLE and was delighted to find quite a few itens, the best and most explicit of which was:
SOLDIERS' SONGS: THE FOLKLORE OF THE POWERLESS
This is Copyright to Les Cleveland, and the link is:
http://facstaff.buffalostate.edu/fishlm/folksongs/les01.htm
(the last characters : les01.htm)
So glad that I can keep this thread in the area of positive, clean thinking, research.
Nothing scurrilous about my simple question which was - "does anyone else know the whole song " - perfectly innocent question - but then - if the cap fits !- after all I never did get to Egypt for a month long holiday
Frank - sounds like you had more fun than we ever did - it was all very posh in the Alexander club in Rome until the paras bet the commandos that they could lasso the giant chandelier and swing a ala Tarzan - the bet was on and one of the paras was swinging away merrily until the bolts loosened and he fell some six stories to the ground - on being rescued he then admitted that it was probably his last jump - he was right - he had broken his back !
Or the time in Vienna when six Argyll's decided to take on a platoon of Russians - the whole battalion found themselves as far from the Russians as the Corps Commander could move them !
Frank -
we had a character like your Mac when we were in Algiers waiting to move on to Bone and the regiment.
The weather was steaming and all the food appeared to be M&V stew
we were in eight man tents and Mac Donald disappeared - to return with lashings of good food with instructions to eat up fast and then clean up every plate.
Pretty soon there was hell on as "someone" had stolen the Officers Dinner.
WE lost Mac after a guard on the Algiers Docks when he went walkabout - and "found " three new uniforms - next morning at guard stand down - he dressed very carefully in his "New" uniform in the gloom of the guardhouse.
The RSM was quite interested in why he was wearing a Green/Khaki uniform of the Canadian army as opposed to the Brown/Khaki uniform of the British army.
MacDonald is probably still in the glasshouse as he had been a commando and was badly wounded at Lofoten Island before becoming a gunner in the Tanks.
Frank - don't remember when we got ties but they were still odd when we were in Austria - all the old squaddies and officers had left for the U.k. and we were getting up to strength very slowly.
When upon the scene comes this little man with a sheepskin jacket a la Monty - name of Screiber who spoke excellent German and was made into the Squadron Interpreter with no other introduction - anyway - everyone thought he was an officer with the wool tie and he demanded a jeep to go to HQ at Althoven. This was produced toot sweet and he was off - well all that winter he had the lance jack Jeep driver going nuts driving him all over the place with nary a word of thanks.
As alway spring follows winter, and the sheepskin came off to reveal a lowly lance jack,whereupon the Jeep driver belted him one in the eye !He said it was worth losing his stripe !
Frank -
the only two times I had sheets and all the bedding was when I was in various hospitals, and at a place called Vaprio de Adio near Milan when I was on some kind of course - we were living in a millionaires mansion - and the servants couldn't do enough for us, shoes shined every night - laundry every night- fantastic food served on damask tablecloths - this was living
but it only lasted a week then it was back to barracks in Austria for the winter.
Queen Farida queen of all the wogs
Queen Farida shagged by all the dogs.
Queen Faridas gone away cos she"s
in the family way.
staniswya pull your wire King
Farouk. ------- ba din.
I first heard this ditty in 1955 when I was in the RAF in Khartoum,Sudan.
Certainly brings back some mamories!
Bernard Hallett
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