![](halfpenny.jpg)
Click here to listen
to this in Real Audio read by Peter D Wright
A hail bawbee mine and aw tae mysel
Wi joy I’m like chowking if truth I maun tell
How best I micht spend it I cannae richt say
I’m fair in a muddle tae ken what tae dae
Where tae gang tae get value is the question for solving
For nearly an oor ma brains were revolving
Ma Mither advised me, “ Billy” says she
“Tak heed what ye buy wi your first bawbee”
I thoucht aince o saving it til I got mair
An then I micht buy a cairrage an pair
Or a fine sailing yacht tae sail on the sea
There’s lots I micht buy if I saved ma bawbee
But I thoucht aince mair it wad tak such a pile
Tae save up sic siller it wid need sic a while
Tae buy a fine yacht tae sail on the sea
I’d need mair tae start than a single bawbee
Before yed sae winkie I cam tae a shop
The sichts o the windae ma hert filled wi hope
There were sweeties o aw kind and oranges, o my
A thousand and ane things a bawbee could buy
There was sweetie pipe, sweetie rock and polisman’s calls
So here it was plain tae see,
Here best I could spend ma first bawbee
Sae intae the shoppie I made a beeline
Tae buy some burnt candy I’d made up ma mind
But jist at this minute, o the thocht maks me greet
It, it slipped frae ma haun an it fell on the street
It rintled an trintled till it cam tae the gutter
An then, ere a wird frae ma lip I could utter
It fell doun a cunny in front o ma ee
An that was the last o ma first bawbee
Note: A bawbee was a half-penny coin.
Written by Kilmarnock poet Archibald McKay (1801-1883). This is a
transcription by Robin Hallam of a recitation by “Reid Lichtie”
Edythe J.R. Robb from memory in her 81st year in Wolfville, Nova
Scotia, 8 October 1984. The Flag's thanks to Robin Hallum for sending
in poem.