The Rag and Bone Man

I remember when I was a little girl And the Rag and Bone man came round On his cart pulled by a horse All manner of things could be found A washing machine with a broken ringer And a bicycle without a wheel He used to give my grandma two pence For a bag of meat bones leftover from a meal The bones were used for knife handles And the grease extracted used to make soap We’d give them to him in a potato sack Tied around the top with a piece of rope I remember one day the ragman Knelt down on the ground Searching between the paving stones Where horseshoe nails could be found Over his tired shoulders He would carry a small bag It would contain bones and various metals Plus numerous pieces of coloured rag One of the ragmen who came to our street His name was Henry Moon If we gave him something for his cart We were rewarded with a goldfish or a balloon It was a hard life being a ragman People now wouldn’t see the sense In working from early morning till night For the measly sum of six pence You still see rag and bone men about No longer with a horse-drawn cart Driving around in short wheel-base lorries They have scrap collecting down to a fine art They still pick up broken washing machines And bicycles without a wheel But some people still prefer to fly-tip Dumping unwanted items in a field We live in a throwaway society No longer reliant on Mr Rag and Bone It’s easy to get rid of scrap items We just need to pick up the phone