CURLY:- Just at this point, Wall Street Ran out of gas and crashed, And the Roaring Twenties Slumped to the ground For the Depression. Now there'd be precious little cash To spare for Aviation, And the cost of one airship Buys a squadron of planes. Our competition turned into A war to the knife, But we managed to get into the air first, In an orchestrated frenzy of publicity...
Within a month a million trippers Came to Cardington to see her, As she floated at the head of a mast As tall as Nelson's Column. The charabancs stacked up, three deep, Along the Bedford Road, To watch us joy-riding The Great and the Good. They didn't care about The other ship in Yorkshire; She didn't get her picture in the papers. Yes, the R. 100 was a mystery...
And our ship was so beautiful, A creature of grace, An iridescent giant fish Gliding, calm and solid, Above us small things in the mud, Unimaginably huge in the sky, Reflecting the winter light And booming gently at us... The choir of engines Resonating, from hot throats, The big chord...
Suzie had shown me paintings By some new mad artists Who painted their dreams. This airship looked like that: Something impossible, A Surrealistic vision... What's that, old boy?.. Me, romantic? Every time, with knobs on!..
Behind the plate-glass windows Of his promenade deck Lord Thomson, the Air Minister, Looked calmly down. He was riding high; The papers were full of him, Him and his magic airship. An army Brigadier And an old crony of the P.M., Who wanted to have him in the Government, But the voters wouldn't touch him.