QUACK TWICE...

Funny how things spring to mind.  Yesterday I mentioned that my Mum invariably addressed me as `my duck` when I was but a boy.  As I was nodding off yet again I got to thinking where else I had heard that term of endearment.  And it came to me that, of course, it was in Dylan Thomas`s masterpiece, Under Milk Wood.  And it was Rosie Probert (From Duck Lane, Jack - quack twice and ask for Rosie) who described Blind Captain Cat not only as `my duck` but a whole lot of other things besides.

Best thing I can do is set out the relevant  bit of that unforgettable dialogue (I have the happy knack of recalling pretty much the whole of Thomas`s play for radio) between Rosie and the Captain.  It goes like this:-

ROSIE PROBERT 

What seas were you rocking

My little deck hand

My favourite husband

In your seaboots and hunger

My duck, my whaler

My honey, my daddy

My pretty sugar sailor.

With my name on your belly 
When you were a boy

Long long ago?

CAPTAIN CAT

I`ll tell you no lies.

The only sea I saw

Was the seasaw sea

With you riding on it.

Lie down, lie easy.

Let me shipwreck in your thighs.

ROSIE PROBERT

Knock twice, Jack

At the door of my grave

And ask for Rosie.

As I said, funny how things spring to mind.  Well, mine anyway.