There are times

There are times

When with a gentle push

Through an old net curtain

A subcutaneous membrane

With a little surface tension

There is nothing

Standing between

Me and my childhood.

Stanley Holloway

Sang ‘Get me to the church on time.’

I say sang

He issued forth

In a posh mockney cockney accent

Frothy trivia

Audrey Hepburn mimed

In My Fair Lady

But she was a hell of a

Goodwill Ambassador

Stanley sang

I say sang

‘Sam. Sam. Pick up thy musket.’

The rest of it is lost to me

But how sad it is

When my lasting impression

Is of a boy soldier

Losing the will to carry on

In the form of a popular song.

Old-style music hall

In the Alley with Sally

Not the long tall one

But the Gracie Fields' power

Ballad.

A forces sweetheart

Until she married the wrong guy

The papers called him and Aye Tie

Whatever that might mean

But I don’t think it was a fashion

Statement.

How interesting when I remember

Things that were before my time

When millennials struggle

With 20th-century reference points.

What will become of us all

When the past is swept away

With the fast food carton

A Saturday night out

And revisionist history.