The Bells of St. Clements

'Oranges and lemons,' say the bells of St Clement's,

'You owe me three farthings,' say the bells of St Martins,

'When will you pay me?' say the bells of Old Bailey,

'When I grow rich,' say the bells of Shoreditch

This British nursery rhyme is one of the few remnants of the world as it was that exist in 1984. The rhyme itself appears unimportant, its significance being the connection to the past through some fading memories. Winston cherishes the knowledge of the song that he gains, this and other "artefacts" are valuable to him because they are unaltered. Everyone seems to have forgotten what life was like before "the Party", indeed, that is the only way to survive.
Within the story the rhyme is never completed. There are references to a bit more of it, a part near the end which goes "Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head!." The final line never appears, what it says is "The last man's dead!". When Winston is being interrogated in the Ministry of Love, O'Brien refers to him as "The Last Man". My contention is that the rhyme is fulfilled in the end, the last man is dead. Not physically, Winston was only the last man in the sence that he had retained his humanity. By the end he no longer has that and something in him has most certainly died.

'When will that be?' Say the bells of Stepney,

'I'm sure I don't know' Says the great bell of Bow

Here comes a candle to light you to bed,

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head!

Chip, chop, chip, chop. The last man's dead!

This concludes the second and final installment in my series on songs and rhymes in 1984.