Bob Turvey is an Englishman who worked in many countries in the Pulp and Paper Industry before retirement.

As a child he lived on a farm. After a degree in Chemistry from Durham University, Bob was awarded his doctorate in Colloid Science from the University of Cambridge. After Cambridge he worked as a road mender for several months before going to Canada for two and a half years to study the chemistry of papermaking. Four years in Finland followed, working in a paper mill.

Bob and his Finnish wife have two sons. When they were young, Bob invented stories to amuse them, two of which André Deutsch published as illustrated children’s books. Bob has also had articles on travel, etymology and paper chemistry published.

Limericks fascinate Bob. He owns hundreds of books of limericks and thousands of articles about them. Over the last forty years, he’s corresponded at length with librarians, bibliographers, linguists, historians and others on matters limerickal. A main area of his interest is determining when limericks came into being, how they developed, and why they became popular. He’s also established, to his own satisfaction, the answer to the long-standing question: why are limericks called limericks?

Bob’s article on The Great Limerick Competition Boom of 1907-8 was published in the Financial Times. Scholarly journals have published his articles on the limericks of Rudyard Kipling and of Algernon Swinburne. All in all, he’s written thousands of compelling limericks: one adorned a poster in Moss Landing Harbor, Monterey Bay, warning boaters not to disturb sea otters; another, describing the cooking ability of his wife, won first prize in the Siskiyou Writers Club of California limerick competition; and yet another, describing a giant cabbage, came third in the annual Alaska State Fair Giant Cabbage Limerick Competition. Bob’s limericks can be found in many books and magazines; several have been recited on BBC radio programs.

                                         There was an old man with a beard

                                         Who said, “It is just as I feared.

                                                   I have written a book

                                                   And when folk take a look

                                         They will think I am frightfully weird!”

There was an old man with a beard

Who said, “It is just as I feared.

     I have written a book

     And when folk take a look

They will think I am frightfully weird!”