Fred Was a Fiend for Food

"You've got to eat well to keep out the cold," my Mother used to tell us when we were mere striplings; that has nothing to do with the fact that one of the poetry and prose sessions ended with the words "Steeplechase, abstemious, egg, divorce, philosopher, crawling" so I consequently wrote about Fred, who was and is completely fictitious-

FRED WAS A FIEND FOR FOOD...

Freddy was a thinker, the philosopher kind
Who’d nothing but thoughts going round in his mind
And chief of those thoughts, which he daily pursued –
Was banquets and feasting and all kinds of Food.
For breakfast he favoured six rashers with eggs
Freshly ground coffee he’d drain to the dregs
For lunch he’d consume – well, I’ll try to be brief –
Two thirds of a lamb and a mountain of beef.
For tea it was sandwiches, prefer-ably ham
Anything less than three loaves was a sham
And even on days he was feeling abstemious
He’d consume sixty scones lashed with cream - at its creamiest.
He ate and he ate - far too much than was wise
‘Til he grew to a giant incredible size
Forty stones in his socks, he made the scales quiver –
Which wasn’t so good for his heart nor his liver.
Fred’s wife it is true and the truth must be said
Endeavoured to change the way her Fred was fed
She cajoled and she’d scold, and then threaten divorce
But Fred kept on scoffing – and showed no remorse.
His doctor, a man who was kindly and wise
Said “You’ve got to eat less, Fred, get some exercise
Or you’ll end up in trouble, a real basket case -
Now, why don’t you run in the town steeplechase?
It’ll give you the exercise you so badly need –
If you train and you diet you’ll run it at speed.”
To which Fred responded, with language appalling –
“You must think I’m daft, Doc, for I’ll finish up crawling!”