Grandma was notorious for loosing her teeth

which prompted this offering from Jane.

I Wish I'd Looked After My Teeth

by Pam Ayres

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,

And spotted the perils beneath,

All the toffees I chewed,

And the sweet sticky food,

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

I wish I'd been that much more willin'

When I had more tooth there than fillin'

To pass up gobstoppers,

From respect to me choppers

And to buy something else with me shillin'.

When I think of the lollies I licked,

And the liquorice allsorts I picked,

Sherbet dabs, big and little,

All that hard peanut brittle,

My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My Mother, she told me no end,

"If you got a tooth, you got a friend"

I was young then, and careless,

My toothbrush was hairless,

I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,

I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and-down brushin'

And pokin' and fussin'

Didn't seem worth the time... I could bite!

If I'd known I was paving the way,

To cavities, caps and decay,

The murder of fillin's

Injections and drillin's

I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lay in the old dentist's chair,

And I gaze up his nose in despair,

And his drill it do whine,

In these molars of mine,

"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."

How I laughed at my Mother's false teeth,

As they foamed in the waters beneath,

But now comes the reckonin'

It's me they are beckonin'

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.