Mary Seacole

Me name Mary Seacole, famous nurse
To de Crimean boys
No, me not Florence Nightingale
Dat mix up, me annoys

Me learn me skills in Jamaica
Where me mother nursed de sick
And I tink it might be destiny child
To be a war medic

If you're coughing
You should have a drink with it
If your diet's poor
You should really tink upon it

If it's cholera
Rehydration's best for it
If it's fever
Better take some rest for it

Wha-oh-oh, wha-oh-oh
Wha-oh-oh-oh

When Crimean War broke out
Me apply for Florence's crew
She turn me down because me black
Yep, weird I know but true

History still says me name
Cos me not one to moan
Me ask me friend Thomas Day for help
And set off on my own

If you need it
Put a massive plaster on it
If you're bleeding
Shouldn't be disaster for it

If your leg broke
Going to need a plaster on it
If you're constipated
Take oil of castor for it

Wha-oh-oh, wha-oh-oh
Wha-oh-oh-oh

Once here, in Crimea
Me became a pioneer
Me carpenters engineered
A hotel at the new frontier

Set up on the front line
In 1855
Independent woman
Saving soldiers lives

Welcome to the British Hotel

Me boarding house became de haunt
Of de great and good
Though it wasn't glamourous
It was built of old bits of wood

Supplied the troops with kits and clothes
Served both de rich and poor
Me nursed right upon de battlefield
While Florence worked far from de war

I'm a nursing lady
Put a splint on it
Me see a wounded man
Better sprint to it

Earned fame from de war
And my stint in it
But the Crimean shame
Is me a skint from it

When de War was done
Me never have a dime
Despite the work me do
Bankruptcy was mine

I'm a fierce lady
Never fazed by it
Wrote a book
And earned funds raised by it

Me hotel
Men owed their lives to it
Going down in history
That's my prize for it