Delafield fans will remember the Provincial Lady asking herself this odd question, and I came across another reference to it yesterday in Winifred Holtby's Women and a Changing Civilisation and was finally inspired to look it up. "Do Shrimps Make Good Mothers?" turns out to be the title of a comic song that was popular in the 1920s. Here are the Two Gilberts (neither, apparently, actually called Gilbert) singing it, from 1924:
As you'll hear, the answer to the question is an emphatic "Yes, they do".
Lovely!
ReplyDeleteI found Is Izzy As He Was? (or Iz Izzy Azzy Woz, perhaps) on youtube, after the Provincial Lady mention.
Thanks Simon, I'll have a look for that - I had vaguely assumed she'd made that one up.
ReplyDeleteI hope the shrimps were palate-cleansing, if you see what I mean, after In Cold Blood!