to ask for your help solving this impossible riddle/joke

[killingtime9198]

My best friend's family have a family 'joke', which she originally told me about when we were about 12/13. When she originally told me she didn't get the joke either, but then later did manage to work it out. When she first met her now husband he didn't get it, but he later also worked it out. I have never managed to get it, and every now and again I will remember the saga of this joke (this has been going on for about 20 years now), try desperately for a few days to work it out and then forget all about it for months.

Anyway, I wonder if the powers of mumsnet can either locate someone who has heard this 'joke' before, or who can work it out!

The joke is:

'There once was a man called Boswell. For short they called him Bos, and he walked up the post office steps.'

The joke is definitely NOT that there is no joke, and they're all having a laugh at me for trying to work it out - I am 100% confident of this.

20 years? I'm annoyed already!!

And they've never given you any clues? I hate them all!

Post Office Steps - POS - anything to do with BOS??

Doesn't seem like a joke to me.

Bos = boss climbing company ladder/stairwell?

That will bug me until somebody works it out.

Google shows Corsica Johnson Boswell was a traveller/writer. I'm not sure the joke is a joke other than to exclude people...

Well, nothing on Google.

Doesn’t seem like a very funny joke, I’m annoyed I clicked on this thread now because I have NO IDEA 🤔 hmmmm hopefully we find out because it’s not just going to be you puzzled anymore OP

Four letters short of Boswell could be Bos - explains the first bit.

Other than that

You sure they aren't just saying they get it to see how long it takes you to admit you don't know and give up trying?

And that is the exact wording of the ‘joke’? I guess after 20 years it must be pretty imprinted on your brain

Bloody hell. Twenty years and they haven't put you out of your misery?

@Justanothernameonthepage - this is what I keep coming back to, and also the fact that it could potentially be written 'There once was a man called Bos. Well, for short they called him Bos' BUT my friend has written it out for me before and done it the way I originally wrote it above. Plus it is known as 'the Boswell joke'.

@QuickBugQn - I hadn't noticed that before! Will ponder further...

@KnittingSister - I have googled over the years myself and not found anything beyond what you have. Unfortunately I am 100% sure that the joke isn't that the joke is on me!

My friend's mum (who I am close to) has always said if I asked her on my wedding day she would tell me. I always insisted that I would remember to ask her, she always insisted I would forget. I got married last week and obviously I did forget! FFS.

Steps could be stairwell, and yes PO or POS short for Post office could come into it, but thats not much of a joke, is it?

Turn b for Bos up {the post office steps] = p?

Noooo! You'll just have to get married again OP, sorry! Congratulations!😀

What the Pete?! Well if that is a riddle/joke now I'm annoyed 😂
This has got to be a wind up, and the joke is you trying to work it out?

Congratulations OP
I bet you’re annoyed now you didn’t remember ‘the Boswell joke’

Closest thing I can find on Google!

Did you mean to link something Mama?

Are you sure it’s not just to exclude? And there’s no point.

Right if that's the case. You need to get rid of everybody in your life, that know the bloody answer to this joke/riddle. They are not true friends leaving you and now all us annoyed for such a long time!

Ahhh I get it now... 😂

Bos
Bank of Scotland?