Although originally trained as a teacher Stafford enjoyed recognition as a musician, composer and arranger and was in demand in the Sydney recording and television studios in the days when TV stations had their own orchestras. During this time Stafford was bass player with the renowned Daly Wilson Big band but also intersected with other luminaries of this period such as Ricky May, Tommy Tycho and Eric Jupp and others.
When not involved in writing novels, plays, poems and limericks and with matters educational, Stafford remains deeply immersed in many aspects of creative musicianship and performance.
Stafford is also a fine novelist with two excellent published books Cull (2014) and Australian Gulag – A Love Story (2016) to his credit.
He and Pem have teamed up musically and now in Liberating Limericks with Stafford’s saucy limericks and Pem’s whimsical drawings.
HER ROYAL ENFIELD
To take her pet dog for a spin,
She chose the five hundred twin.
It wasn’t the ‘Royal’
To which she was loyal
But rather, the gen’rous trade-in.
HANGING IN
I promised to be your sweetheart,
Through thick and thin, I’d play my part.
When going gets tough
Take the smooth with rough,
But I will let go if you fart!
RATS!
For eons and eons we’ve bin,
The source of disease within
All kinds of ships
But this is the pits –
We can’t even find our way in!
INNOVATION HAS ITS DOWNSIDE
If you must be a copycat, Pat,
Note that the last one went Splat!
So, go be a clown
But on the way down,
You’ll have to flap harder than that!