"Swings and Roundabouts"

I use this phrase a lot and when on the phone to a friend tonight I used it again to underline how things will get better in his life! He asked me to look at where the phrase actually comes from, and I came up with the following:-

The full saying is usually given nowadays as: "What you lose on the roundabouts you gain on the swings" or vice versa. This was a reference, in an old poem, to a showground-owner's claim. In other words, on some days the kids would pay to pile onto the swings and provide his income, though the roundabouts were neglected. Obviously, it would be vice versa on other days. Today, of course, it applies to any such 50/50 or up/down situation. The poem ‘Roundabouts and Swings' is by Patrick Chalmers and here are the appropriate lines, after the poet asks the fairground-man what his work is like: "Said he 'the job's the very spit of what it always were, 'It's bread and bacon mostly when the dog don't catch a hare, 'But looking at it broad, and while it ain't no merchant kings, 'What's lost upon the roundabouts, we pulls up on the swings."

Talking to old acquaintances and friends from years ago at Nu's wedding, I realised how my life over the past few years would resemble "swings and roundabouts". A few, that knew me when I was a driven ward Manager, have found the fact that I now am a part time d grade living in a tiny Welsh village " intriguing","surprising", "worrying" and in one case downright "amazing! " Their reactions , especially some of the shocked ones amused me, and the fact that I was amused rather than worried about it speaks volumes.

To me swings and roundabouts, mean just simply that the negatives of life always pass! ie This too will pass, phrase already discussed in a previous blog http://disasterfilm.blogspot.com/2006_10_03_archive.html