One of the most famous heroines of song celebrated last Saturday her eighty-eighth birthday. Mrs Mary Hughes was born at Ty Issa Farm, Llangollen, in 1841, and when she was a little girl she was extremely fond of lambs.
When a mother sheep died in severe weather, the little Welsh maiden would take charge of the orphan. Sometimes she would have half-a-dozen lambs following her about the farmstead. One day Billy, the eldest, Mrs Hughes said, "followed me to the village school and frolicked and scampered over the forms until the schoolmistress turned him out."
Three maiden sisters, the Misses Buel, from London were staying at Llangollen at the time, and one was so much amused that she wrote the well-known poem, Mary Had a Little Lamb. All lovers of poetry will congratulate Mrs Hughes and will wish her ad multos annos. Some, however, will inquire what became of Billy the lamb, her partner in celebrity? It is hardly likely that he, too, is in a position to be interviewed. Eighty years may have passed since he made his exit from the world, roasted to perfection and flavoured with mint sauce.
Perhaps, he lived on to a woolly old age and left many descendants to frolic and scamper in the springs of later years. Did he become a bore, wearying his fellows in the sheep fold with the story of his hour of glory? Did he hold himself a little aloof from the mere mutton that never earned a song? Speculation travels farther. Little Miss Muffet, little Boy Blue and little Jack Horner - where are these notables to-day? Miss Muffet, perhaps, has outgrown her fear of spiders; Boy Blue has made a fortune in the shoe trade; and Mr John Horner, who had so fair a conceit of himself, certainly is thriving still.
The Irish Times, May 21st, 1929.