Memories Were Made Of This

Dresses tapering round the knees
Winters crisp and naked trees...
Memories were made of this,
Of changing homes and fortunes,
Of being loved and loving back


Trains that made incessant chatter,
Billowing clouds and deep blue skies
Pebbled beaches and tuppence ha'penny to spend
Father's motor-bike roaring down the road
Reading Billy the Kid and enjoying it as much as I


Calderstones with the seasons dressed as ladies, ripe
Gypsies offering their wares and your fortune
Made out as ogres who eat small boys
I Spy and Boys Own - standing on bridges
For trains to envelop you in steam and smut.


Falling off bikes and being picked up, seeing
Only legs, not faces till they bent down.
Peering through the hole in the fence into Paradise.
Being kept in the bedroom when the Ratman called
So we wouldn't be poisoned.


Christmas with simplicity, sometimes snow,
Knowing that Jesus really loved you and calling
for Mummy when that shadow in the bedroom
Moved meanacingly near

Collecting rent with Daddy and getting tuppence
From Old men with tired faces and sitting
On the chair keeping quiet.
Standing in the garden, in the snow with sister
For our photograph - Remembering back
Through all those years


Memories Were Made Of This


Being sent away to school - I wondered
If I'd done anything wrong
Crying for my own home and Mummy to hold me close
Of coming home on the train that took forever
Almost
And Daddy big and Mummy warm to welcome me
Eventually a stranger


Of staying with Bryn and Betty and Bob in the pub
Where the barmaid was Sheila, dark and mysterious
Who was always kissing that man - and Bryn and I loved her


That derelict house, which became our palace
The girl we disturbed having a pee in the bushes
Oh sweet memories were made of this!

Halcyon days and those warm summer nights
When we couldn't sleep - that night with Ralph
When we watched the dawn come up and
We felt Holy and close to God and Switzerland
When I was a yob - it was as if I wasn't there.


The football matches on ice hard pitch
The lazy cricket and those headaches that hurt
Falling asleep in meadows and being late back
And being in love with Beryl at home and sometimes Anne

Then slowly / the beauty / of memories
Drifts into the hardness of realities
And I don't know
How lucky I am to be where it's at - Here and
Now in the peace and security of my own home
Watching my children make their own memories


click here >>>>Memories were made of this


written in the 70's - Click above and this is the pub I stayed at on many a week-end between 1957 and 1960