This is a crackin' wee poem that I have just comes across again. Littered with great Belfastisms.

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Now they built a big ship down in Harland’s, She was made for to sell to the Turks,

And they called on the Yard’s chief designer to design all the engines and works.

Now finally the engines was ready and they screwed in the very Last part, An’ yer man says, ‘Let’s see how she runs, lads!’ An’ bejesus! The thing wouldn’t start.

So they pushed and they worked an’ they footered, An’ the engineer’s faces got red,

The designer he stood lookin’ stupid, An’ scratchin’ the back o’ his head.

But while they were fiddlin’ and workin’, Up danders oul’ Jimmy Dalzell, He had worked twenty years in the shipyard and ten in the ‘aircraft’ as well.

So he pushed and he worked and he muttered, till he got himself through till the front, And he had a good look roun’ the engine, An’ he gives a few mutters and grunts.

And then he looks up to the gaffer, An’ says he, ‘Mr Smyth, d’ye know? They’ve left out the Diagonal Steam Trap! How the hell d’ye think it could go?’

Now the engineer eyed the designer, the designer he looked at the ‘hat’, And they whispered the one to the other, ‘Diagonal Steam Trap? What’s that?

But the gaffer he wouldn’t admit like, To not knowin’ what this was about, So he says ’Right enough, we were stupid!, The Diagonal Steam Trap’s left out!’

Now in the meantime oul’ Jimmy had scarpered, Away down to throw in his boord, and the gaffer comes up and says ‘Jimmy! D’ye think we could have a wee word?

‘Ye see that Diagonal Steam trap?, I know it’s left out-that’s bad luck, But the engine shop’s terrible busy, D’ye think ye’ could knock us one up?

Now oul’ Jimmy was laughin’ his scone off, He had made it all up for a gag, He seen what was stoppin the engine, The feed pipe was blocked with a rag!

But he sticks the oul’ hands in the pockets, An he says ‘Aye, I’ll give yez a han’! I’ll knock yez one up in the mornin’, An’ the whole bloody thing will be grand!’

So oul’ Jimmy starts to work the next mornin’, To make what he called a Steam Trap, An oul’ box an’ a few bits of tubing, An’ a steam gauge stuck up on the top.

An’ he welds it all on till the engine, An’ he says to the wonderin’ mob, ‘As long as that gauge is at zero, the Steam Trap is doin’ its job!.

Then he pulls the rag outa the feed- pipe, An’ he gives the oul’ engine a try, An’ bejuses! She goes like the clappers An’ oul’ Jimmy remarks, ‘That’s her nye!’

Now the ship was the fastest seen ever, So they sent her away till the Turks, But they toul’ them ‘That Steam Trap’s a secret! We’re the only ones knows how it works!’

But the Turks they could not keep their mouths shut, An’ soon the whole story got roun’, An’ the Russians got quite interested, Them boys has their ears to the groun’!

So they sent a spy dressed as a sailor, To take photies of Jimmy’s Steam Trap, An’ they got them all back till the Kremlin, An’ they stood round to look at the snaps.

Then the head spy says ‘Mr Koshgin!, I’m damned if I see how that works!, So they sent him straight off to Siberia, An’ they bought the whole ship from the Turks!

When they found the Steam Trap was a ‘cod’ like, They couldn’t admit they’d been had, So they built a big factory in Moscow, To start makin’ Steam Traps like mad!

Then Mr Koshgin rings up Mr Nixon And says ‘Youse’uns thinks yez are great! But wi’ our big new Russian made Steam Trap, Yez’ll find that we’ve got yez all bate!

Now oul’ Nixon, he nearly went ‘Harpic’, So he thought he’d give Harland’s a call, So he dialled the engine-shop number, And of course he got sweet bugger all!

But at last the call came through to Jimmy, In the midst of a terrible rush, ‘There’s a call for you from the White House!’ Says oul’ Jim, ‘That’s a shop in Portrush!’

There’s a factory outside of Seattle, Where they’re turnin’ out Steam Traps like hell, It employs twenty-five thousand workers, And the head of it —

Jimmy Dalzell!