According to a history of the kings and queens of England, the first King of Essex's son was married to a girl called Ricole.
This fact allows Kit Wright some amusing sociological observations in his collection, Ode to Didcot Power Station (Bloodaxe Books, £9.95).
RICOLE
An Anglo-Saxon Queen of Essex
Was named Ricole - imagine that!
She wasn't Nicole, as she might have been -
RICOLE, RICOLE, was the name of the Queen -
On the Essex throne she sat!
I'm honoured to live with an Essex girl,
Count others friends - hurray, hurrah -
And I'd declare to you, out of hand,
That the finest women on sea or land
Are Essex girls, by far!
Was she the child of Nicole and Ricky?
No, she wasn't! her father's name was
Ethelbert, an unmanly handle
For Essex, of course (who holds a candle
To them in the naming game?)
But there it is. And here we are
With a nominal archaeological find
Of sharp significance. Bless her soul,
That first and definitive Queen Ricole,
The template of her kind!
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