Many Thanks "Taphappy",
The words you have provided fill out a large missing piece in my recollection, as there are the fuller verses & covering every station in a bomber. Certainly there were no such large crewed bombers in WWI but I have a nagging feeling that 'Old King Cole' sired a great many adapted versions to the original more wholesome refrain.
I suspect 'tween original pub drinking refrain and the military it changed from a simple song with a mildly bawdy word or two into more specific spin-offs to suit whatever unit was doing the singing. That multiplication happily seems to have ensured the basic song was preserved (improved on ?) by quite a few succeeding generations.
I'm out of touch with today's equivalent chaps in Rugby Clubs or their HM forces folk, so I can't enquire if the 'Old King' is still extant; never the less the origins surely comfortably precede WWI.
I am therefore convinced the 'King' was likely & as desired overlaid with RFC wording here and there and then he, being a man of the times, quickly adjusted his text to match developing military requirements for a well known (thus singable by all) song with the camaraderie it generated.
It's always a shock to think how very few years - only about a dozen - separate me as an infant school child from those young men at war for us.
Even my brother (91 this year) was just too young in 1945 and yet his airforce career including stunting Meteors was in 'peacetime'.
I hope that with Tarhappy at 93, who is one of the very few of that age contributing to this forum, can inspire we other forum watchers who have manifestly enjoyed the many earlier reminiscences here to find sufficient copy to keep this tribute to the generation before mine going strong !
mike hallam
Last edited by mikehallam; 16th Feb 2019 at 10:37.
Reason: sp English.