Billed as 'The Essence of Eccentricity', Nellie Wallace was an extraordinary performer. Not a pretty woman, she dressed in ultra-tight hobble skirts (so much so that she had to lie down on the stage to pick up whatever she had contrived to drop) and her hat sported a lone daisy, feather or sometimes a fish-bone!

Her repertoire included such gems as 'Under the Bed', in which she heeds her mother's advice to check there at bed-time just in case a man has secreted himself — sadly she has had no luck in finding one! There was the song that a young Ernie Wise featured at the beginning of his career, 'Let's Have A Tiddley At The Milk Bar' but possibly the oddest one of all was this...

 

Tonight I'm alone, broken-hearted
To mother I've murmured 'goodbye-ee'
From the home of my youth I've departed
With a tear in my bonny blue eye.

Forget all my troubles I can't tho' I try
There's only one thing left for me — sui-ci-hi-hide....

I don't like my mother's pie-crust.
Eat it? No — I'd sooner die fust!
I've tied it round me neck,
And tomorrow I shall be
Down at the bottom of the deep - blue - sea.

When I'm in the water my wish is
This piece of hard pie-crust you see
Will make a good meal for the fishes
If they turn up their noses at me...

When I'm in the water I know I shall drown
This pie-crust would weigh sixteen elephants dow-how-hown...

I don't like my mother's pie-crust.
Eat it? No — I'd sooner die fust!
I've tied it round me neck,
And tomorrow I shall be
Down at the bottom of the deep - blue - sea.