Rambling Syd Rumpo
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Rambling Syd Rumpo was a folk singer character played by English comedic genius Kenneth Williams in the radio comedy series Round the Horne. The Rambling Syd sketches generally began with a short discourse on the nature of the song which would inexorably follow; these discourses in their own right would have assured Rambling Syd Rumpo a place in radio history as masterpieces of suggestivity and double-entendre. For this, Rambling Syd was customarily introduced by Kenneth Horne, who would set things up by (for example) inquiring as to the nature and origin of the song. Rambling Syd would (usually) respond with an "Ullo, mi dearios" before launching into the ensuing detailed explanation which left a great deal to the imagination.
The songs themselves pushed and extended boundaries of acceptable sexual suggestivity way beyond the narrow confines of a Sunday lunchtime radio slot, using nonsense words like 'moolies' and 'nadgers' in suggestive contexts.
Williams later starred (with Leslie Phillips and others) in the short-lived Radio sketch show Oh, Get On with It (based on a pilot episode entitled Get On With It), which also featured appearances as Rambling Syd.
Many of the words used by Rambling Syd were made up, and have subsequently entered the English language.
Memorable songs
- The Ballad of the Woggler's Mooly (to the tune of Clementine)
- Clacton Bogle Picker's Lament
- D'Ye Ken Jim Pubes
- Green Grow My Nadgers O!
- Runcorn Splod Cobbler's Song
- Song Of The Australian Outlaw
- The Black Grunger of Hounslow
- The Ballad of the Young Cordwangler
- The Song Of The Bogle Clencher