A certain Mrs Hetty Lump
Was buried in a rubbish dump

Up to her neck

From the age of thirty five

Till the day she died,

Mad, I expect.

She lived entirely on discarded chips
And rotting stuff the tomcat wouldn’t touch

Of which there wasn’t much

And orange peel and apple pips

Dropped by all the local kids

Who used to play at football there
(The one thing Hetty couldn’t bear),

She licked the lids

Of empty baked bean tins

And nothing else would wet her lips

But puddle water seeping out of litter bins
And sometimes mildewed moist banana skins

And all was for her sins.

One day the news began to spread
That Mrs Hetty Lump was dead
And all the townsfolk gathered round

As they do

Mud in every shoe

To see if it was true.

The thing they found looked like a severed head
And keen to know what more was underground
They got her by the hair and pulled her out

Like dry roots from a flowerbed.

She weighed perhaps three stone,

The skin was fraying off the bone,
A sight they could have done without;

She looked so foul
They brought a trowel

And buried her there decently
And stuck a flower on top as well.


Then from the grave there came a smell—
An odour sweet as sanctity.
A vicar who was there by chance

Thanked his stars and did a little dance

And said it was a sign from God
That they should build a chapel there,
A stonework hagiography
In honour of the Trinity.

“Yes, let’s!” the people cried in unity.

Now speed the mortar, bricks and hod!
The ground was firm, the weather fair,
They put foundations everywhere

To make the place look grand;

And it was finished in a day

Because some passing angels lent a hand;

And everyone could safely say
It was the finest in the land.

And so they gazed with satisfaction
On pomp in place of putrefaction.

“If that don’t keep them kids out of the dump,
Nothing will,” said the ghost of Mrs Lump.