[Liza]
I help with the local Brownie pack, my name is Allison Wright
We meet at St Swithun's Church Hall every Thursday night
I teach the kids about kindness and doing a good turn
Plus self-reliance and being prepared, which are useful things to learn

And every year they go camping in various beauty spots
The Brownies get very excited, they spend ages practising knots
I naturally get parental consent for our annual jamboree
But this year it suddenly struck me, I should phone the HSE

HSE

[Adèle]
Health and Safety Executive!

[Liza]
They explained it clearly to me
I hadn't had relevant training
The parents might very well sue me
And what if it never stopped raining?

Thank heavens for health and safety, they pointed out the flaws
The myriad risks to life and limb when kids are out of doors
Their book of regulations forced me to explore
All those hidden dangers which I'd never seen before
A... child... could...
Skewer themselves with a tent peg

[Adèle]
Burn to a crisp on the campfire

[Liza]
Choke to death on a sausage

[Adèle]
Sever their leg on a tripwire

[Adèle & Liza]
Suffocate in a mineshaft
Poison themselves with hemlock

[Adèle]
Picnic on a wasp's nest

[Liza]
Stumble in Much Wenlock

[Adèle]
Sink into a peat bog
Contract TB from badgers
Be stricken with catatonia after sighting a flasher's nadgers
[Liza]
Well thank heavens for health and safety
I needed their advice
They sent me out a flow chart, which was wonderfully precise
The site-specific hazards didn't worry me unduly
But there's more to a camping holiday than singing Ging Gang Goolie

[Adèle]
A... child... could...
Somersault into a baler
Develop a case of the lockjaw

[Liza]
Drown in a pile of slurry
Get horribly gored by a wild boar

[Adèle]
Stub their toe on a rucksack

[Liza]
Lose their mobile phone case

[Adèle]
Be scarred for life by failing to win the egg-and-spoon race
Trap their foot in a burrow
Hitch a lift to the station
Suffer the indignity of early menstruation
[Liza]
Oh thank heavens for health and safety
I cancelled the trip, which brought peace to me
And we spent the week sitting quietly doing a project on obesity

Oh the girls all love being Brownies, we do have a wonderful time
And every year for a seasonal treat, we go to the pantomime
But because of the fact that our camping trip had to be aborted
A dynamic risk assessment was essential for things to be sorted

So I went alone to the theatre and from my seat in Row J
I performed a detailed inspection, and everything seemed okay
I made careful note of the exits and I planned for emergency
And then just as a precaution, I phoned the HSE

HSE

[Adèle]
Healthy and Safety Executive!

[Liza]
They implied I wasn't realistic
I'd taken leave of my senses
Did I want to become a statistic?
Had I pondered the consequences?

Thank heavens for health and safety, they brought me face-to-face
With all the perilous pitfalls that are in a public place
They made me aware of the hazards in any theatre or hall
Apart from the obvious madness of travelling there at all

A... child... could...
Die in the rush for the ice cream
Cut themselves on a programme

[Adèle]
Take offence at the mention of Christmas if they're followers of Islam

[Liza]
Or find the confusion of gender brings on emotional trauma

[Adèle]
Get kidnapped by the Chechens or spat on by a performer
Be hauled on stage to sing a duet with Little Jimmy Krankie
Then smothered to death in the underskirts of Christopher Biggins' Twankey

[Liza]
OHHHHHHHHHH
Thank heavens for health and safety, hooray for the nanny state
I cancelled the trip and saved us all from a truly horrible fate
I knew I had to do something to assuage the girls' regrets
So we spent the night with a tube of lube putting condoms on courgettes

Oh, I take the Brownies swimming... oh God
Well, I have done in the past
But after phoning the HSE, well frankly, I couldn't be arsed!