Tell me will you old man what do you know?
I can see your arthritic bent over and slow,
Your house is a shambles all clutter and grime,
Your world is just one room you sleep most the time,
I'm not sound asleep though my mind oft drifts away,
Remembering my childhood each wonderful day,
My very first day at my very first school,
Meeting new class mates and acting the fool,
We had fun in the playground some new friends we'd make,
Playing football and marbles in our 10 O'clock break,
Then back to the classroom a picture to draw,
All happiness and joyfulness could we ever wish for more?
The boys smartly dressed in new uniform and caps,
Young girls in their gymslips and a cardigan, perhaps,
Building with cardboard bricks the high wall we'd leap,
Then off to a truckle bed for an afternoon sleep,
The girls with their skipping ropes, up and down on the spot,
Some girls skipped to perfection but then other girls did not,
They did cartwheels and handstands against the school wall,
Us boys looking on and laughing perchance they would fall,
We played hopscotch and fag cards and all sorts of games,
Alas through the years I have forgotten most the names,
In the winter we played conkers but when the snow fell outside,
We'd make snowmen have snowball fights and on the ice we would slide.
My brain may be addled now as I reminisce in my chair,
Remembering my first kiss from a sweetheart so young and so fair,
Of all of my school friends I played with when young,
Now in the far reaches of the world they've been flung.
I am young again, a small boy, energetic and lithe,
They were free from care times my childhood simple and blithe,
In my thoughts I'm not arthritic, affected not by the passing of time.
I see only my childhood not clutter not shambles nor the dust or the grime,
