Edward Lear and My Father

Limericks Revisited

This is really my fathers book. Dad was a great fan of Edward Lear, constantly reciting the Nonsense Poems throughout my childhood. He asked me, when I was a teenager, to quote the first line of a Lear limerick. Without reading the rest of the verse, Dad composed his own version using Lears first line and he continued until he had rewritten all hundred and nine limericks, bringing them into the twentieth century. If this little book amuses and delights even a few people, I think Dad would be pleased. His motto in life was to put more into this world than he took out of it. I have tried, out of love for him, to enable him to leave a little more in this world. Barbara Whitehead (nee Lowe)