Oranges and lemons

Oranges and lemons

 

The bells of St Clement Danes play the tune four times a day

This is a traditional English nursery rhyme and singing game, first published in about 1744.

Christopher Fowler’s book ’Oranges and Lemons’ is based on the nursery rhyme, but it is a thrilling, inventive series of murders investigated by Bryant and May, the two elderly detectives from the Peculiar Crimes Unit. It is not a cosy story. It is quite fitting, since the game has macabre elements, but greatly enjoyed by the participants, with the thrill of escaping . . . or not.

Two children make an arch with their arms and the queue of players passes under the arch as everyone sings the song.

1874 Artwork by Agnes Rose Bouvier Nicholls (1842-1892)

Oranges and lemons

Say the bells of St Clement’s;

You owe me five farthings

Say the bells of St Martin’s.

 

When will you pay me?

Say the bells of Old Bailey;

When I grow rich

Say the bells of Shoreditch.

 

When will that be?

Say the bells of Stepney.

I do not know

Says the great bell of Bow.

 

Here comes a candle

To light you to bed

And here comes a chopper

To chop off your head

Chip chop chip chop

The last man’s dead!

In the last verse, which is sung at an increasingly fast pace, the children run through as quickly as they can to avoid being caught, the ‘arches’ make chopping motions with their arms and those who are caught when the ‘chopper’ comes down on the last word of the last line have to join on behind one of the two ‘arches’, as an orange or a lemon.

An alternative version of the game has the ‘caught’ children forming arches until eventually there is a long row or arches for children to run through.

Oranges and lemons

 Say the bells of St Clement’s

St Clement Danes, in the City of Westminster, is reputedly the church of the nursery rhyme and plays the tune every day at 9.00, noon. 3.00 pm and 6:00 pm. but St Clement’s Eastcheap, in the City of London, also claims that honour. St Clement Danes is the central church of the RAF and one of the two ‘island churches’ in London, being situated on a traffic island near the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand. The other island church is St Mary le Strand.

Both churches were designed by Sir Christopher Wren. The legend of St Clement says that he was martyred by being tied to an anchor and cast into the Black Sea. He is the patron saint of sailors.

You owe me five farthings,

Say the bells of St Martin’s

St Martin’s or St Martin-in-the-Fields is dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours also known as Martin the Merciful. He is best remembered for using his sword to cut his cloak in two so that he could give a poor ragged beggar half of it to wear in the cold winter.

When will you pay me?

Say the bells of Old Bailey

The bells of Old Bailey belong to St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, now known as Holy Sepulchre. It is the National Musicians’ Church, with a chapel dedicated to St Cecilia, the patron saint of music and musicians. The bells were said to sing, ‘When will you pay me?’ to the prisoners in Newgate Debtor’s Prison, which used to lie opposite St Sepulchre’s. Newgate was demolished in 1902, following a grisly history.

When I grow rich

Say the bells of Shoreditch

The Shoreditch bells belong to St Leonard’s church, often known as the actors’ church because of its association with Elizabethan theatre. St Leonard is the patron saint of prisoners

When will that be?

Say the bells of Stepney

St Dunstan’s in Stepney is one of the oldest churches in London, and has been a site of Christian worship since early Saxon times, (450-1066). St Dunstan was a noted artist, musician and silversmith and is the patron saint of bellringers and metalsmiths.

I do not know

Says the great bell of Bow

The present church of St Mary-le-Bow was designed by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London of 1666. There are currently twelve bells at the church, named after different saints and having different weights and notes. Only those born within the sound of Bow Bells can call themselves true Londoners - that is, Cockneys.

2009 Sculpture by Christine Charlesworth in Ramster Gardens, Chiddingfold, Surrey