Twa baw faces: an explanation.

"Twa baw faces" in the Ayrshire dialect translates as "two ball faces", which infers that the person with this type of face has one which is reminiscent of a ball, and specifically a soccer ball ie plump, fat and round - and generally difficult to capture on camera other than with a wide-angled lense.

It is a Denver family tradition to have one of these aforementioned faces and they are woven into myths and family folklore. For example once, as a young child, I had the occasion to make a visit to a school friend in Saltcoats where, after much laborious cycling up Sannox Drive that seemed like a trip into the Himalayas, with each council house being passed like an unassailable glacier ridge, my slowing legs on the pedals of my Raleigh Grifter found me at a stranger's door. Duncan the school friend was not at home and some children playing suggested trying his friend's house, though they didn't know the exact address - but I got there!

The door opened and a man in his early fifties with slicked-back, greying hair opened the door.

"Is Duncan here, I was told he was with his friend?"

"Aye, he's here, in the back, in yi come son."

"Thanks very much," my relief pouring out on sweat goblets over my reddened face.

Then, as if from nowhere, and very far from home - about two or three miles of built-up post-war housing - the man felt the connectivity of my palpable energy...

"Are you a Denver?"

"I suppose so, I mean my mother was one... is one," I responded confusingly, but with self-satisfaction and thinking to myself, "How does he know, I mean I am in the next town, I might as well be in London!"

Satisfaction must be guaranteed, so I asked quizzically, "How do you know that?"

"Oh it's yer baw face, anybody can tell a Denver by that!" with the reassurance as if it were as true as the mountains and the seas or as real as the NHS.

So to our tale. The following poem describes the adventures of my cousin and I, the twa baw faces, who spent the summer of 2008 sailing the isles of Scotland, singing and entertaining with the baw face brogue!

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Twa Baw Faces Like These

Heard about yer Rattlin Roarin Willies and that
For awe the world to see
Well here's twa kinsmen yi widnae slight
Or you'll end up in the drink
So hae yersel a huid think

Givin help tae auld maws
Those wi seething withdrawals
The world's a mighty fine garrulous breeze

Wi twa baw faces like these

Everywhere you see the lads
Comin doon the street
Singing the tunes o glory and getting fou in Tobermory
"Where hi ya bin si braw lad?"
"Is there for honest poverty?"
"There's mony a bonny Jean!"
Muckle grand and ready to make a stand
Mare gallus than oor Rabbie wid have ever have been
Aye yi should've seen
Them riggin the mast on Hebridean seas

Twa baw faces like these

Not slight but dandy, bleedin and skirlin
Vocal and defiant, the songs rain oot
Yankees guffaw in the Mish Nish awe
Ye can barely hear the birds craw
Or the whirl o the wind as it lowps through the trees

For twa baw faces like these

So if you ever go astray in Ayrshire's fair auld pleasant shores
Hark the blast of an auld Scottish ditty as it roars
"Clear the gantry!"
"We'll be back to claim Auld Scotland's rightly lores"
When the evening's dark the Scotsman never chores
And her brave kin and kind you must remind sae please
The twa baw faces just like these

Twa baw faces like these

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