A Rhyming Guide to Britain - although it may not look like it

I have long thought our spelling system must be the ultimate form of national defence. There are some towns mentioned here that I only just found out how to pronounce because of the rhyme.

UNORTHOGRAPHY

Tourists are hopers. ln some other place

They hope to find some wondrous other race,

Their heads are cameras, which they hope can be

Loaded with memory-film in bright 3-D.

The easiest other race to be among

Is surely Britain's with its common tongue - tourists attention !

Nor forthwith assume

You say as 'spelt each little town, (like Frome);

The Welsh have funny names your tongue to twist with,

Like Penmaenmawr and Gwich and Aberystwyth –

That you expect. But when in England, how

Dare any tourist ask the way to Slough

Who yesterday put someone in a huff

By thinking brow homophonous with Brough?

Though Glyndebourn’s opera for the enlightened few is

How can they get there but by way of Lewes?

(Under the Sussex Downs, where snug they both lie

Are many other gems -- for instance Hoathly.

What lord of maps, what orthographic jouster

Grapples with Bicester and its cicester, Towcester

And never gets in something like a panic

If blank stares greet him when he asks for Alnwick

Nor ends by thinking people downright spooky

Who make a place spelt Stiffkey rhyme with Newquay?

Tourists ! You needn't be alarmed unduly

By England's treatment of a word like Beaulieu.

These Norman names (or Saxon ones, like Wrotham

Unlettered men have modified to suit 'em

And pundits long since gave up trying to teach 'em

How you should rea!ly say a name like Beauchamp

Our names and views hold unexpected joy;

 Seaward, Atlantic views  (as seen at Fowey;

Views over sands, or rocky views and pebbly;

Pastoral views, near inland towns like Weobley;

East Anglian views, with churches old and mossy,

Each as unique as disyllabic Costessy.

Tourists! Take heart! You won't go really wrong;

Most of the traps are listed in this song.

Most of our names are what they seem to be,

Often euphemious, almost never harsh,

Thus: Souldrop: Beer; or Moreton-in-the-Marsh.

Winterboume Whitechurch; Milton Abbas; Deal;

Birdlip; Uttoxeter: Piddletrenthide; Seal;

Gussage All Saints; Sea Houses; Wantage; Diss;

(All useful padding in a verse like this;

Just now and then our names, our doubtful skies,

Give that most precious tourist gift, surprise.

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