I’m the seventh in my family, born in 1787,
and I learned my father’s work with ready hand.
Though the youngest I was born, I took up the coaching horn
and I worked the carriage trade throughout the land.

Then I married bonny Bess, my adviser staunch and true;
and from Rochester we moved into the Smoke;
though some folk are perplexed by the name “Swan With Two Necks”
it’s our inn-sign, and we don’t explain the joke.

By the time that we’d been running for a decade from the “Swan”
I’d three hundred teams of four at my command;
two thousand men bestowed on the service of The Road;
half of  London’s Royal Mail trade in my hand.

My coaches beat all others – the “Defiance” and the “Hope”,
the “Commercial” and the “Telegraph” supreme;
ten miles an hour or so for a ten mile stage they’ll go;
with three minutes, maybe two, to change the team.

My coachmen are the best, for they will drive to any length
and there isn’t one will ever damn my name;
though they call me “Bite ‘em Sly” for my smooth and smiling eye
they will drive through hell for me, boys, all the same.

For I work as hard as they; and they know; I know my trade,
I know horses, and I know my driving men.
But I know the time is coming when the railways will be running
and the coaching trade will vanish from our ken.

So I’ll sell out and retreat, incognito for a month,
and with Bess I’ll talk of business and of plans;
When I find another track for the drivers I’ll be back.
Billy Chaplin won’t be beat by railway vans.