I Was a Bustle Maker Once, Girls by Patrick Barrington (read by Tom O'Bedlam)

Fashion has always been inclined to distort and exaggerate the female form. In the Victorian era the was the hourglass figure and the wasp waist were in vogue. To achieve the effect women wore tightly-laced corsets and were padded above and below, though the notion that some had their lower ribs removed is probably just a rumour. They were covered from neck to toe and a glimpse of stocking was really shocking, as you've probably heard . William Blake said:
When a man has married a wife, he finds out whether
Her knees and elbows are only glued together.
trulyvictorian....
High Street, Kensington, was then presumably a focal point of the fashion industry. It's a small world: it happens I also worked in High St. Ken when I was a lad of twenty. I remember selling a Jaguar to a well-known magician.
When I was a lad of twenty and was working in High Street, Ken.,
I made quite a pile in a very little while - I was a bustle maker then.
Then there was work in plenty, and I was a thriving man
But things have decayed in the bustle making trade,
Since the bustle making trade began.
I built bustles with a will then, I made bustles with a wit,
I made bustles as a Yankee hustles, simply for the love of it.
I built bustles with a skill then, surpassed, they say, by none,
But those were the days when bustles were the craze,
And now those days are done.
I was a bustle maker once, girls, many many years ago,
I put my heart in the bustle maker's art and I don't mind saying so.
I may have had the brains of a dunce, girls,
I may have had the mind of a muff,
I may have been plain and deficient in the brain
But I did know a bustle maker's stuff.
I built bustles for the slender, I built bustles for the stout,
I built bustles for the girls with muscles, and bustles for the girls without.
I built bustles by the thousands, in the good old days of yore,
But things have decayed in the bustle making trade
And I don't build bustles any more.
Many were the models worn once; but mine were unique, tis said,
No rival design was so elegant as mine; I was a bustle maker bred.
I was a bustle maker born once, an artist through and through,
But things have decayed in the bustle making trade
And what can a bustle maker do?
I built bustles to enchant, girls, I built bustles to amaze,
I built bustles for the skirt that rustles, and bustles for the skirt that sways.
I built bustles for my aunt, girls, when other business fled,
But a bustle maker can't make bustles for his aunt
When a bustle maker's aunt is dead.
I was a bustle maker once, girls, once in the days gone by,
I lost my heart to the bustle maker's art, and that I don't deny.
I may have had the brains of a dunce, girls,
As many men appear to suppose,
I may have been obtuse and of little other use
But I could make a bustle when I chose.
I built bustles for the bulging, I built bustles for the lithe,
I built bustles for the girls in Brussels and bustles for the girls in Hythe.
I built bustles for all Europe once, but I've been badly hit,
Things have decayed in the bustle making trade
And that is the truth of it.