This verse will no doubt prove a history lesson
For those of you not quite as old as me,
But will it leave a different impression
Of the seventies, as ‘sensational’, not lousy?

If you’ve never heard of Wombles, of old pennies,
Or Eddie Waring, it may come as a surprise
To read this through, and realise just how many
Of these names and events you do though recognise

Well…

There was Abba, acid rain and test tube babies,
We had Jilted John and silver jubilees,
Arthur Scargill, Michael Jackson, Queen and rabies,
Discontent, boycotts, apartheid and Bee Gees

A bus conductor told us when we’d reached town,
Where things called shops would let us try clothes on
In cubicles, no postage, and no lockdown,
And pay, at tills, in cash, no Amazon

It was quite the time for bombers and hijackers,
But, for all that, one of incongruity,
For we played quite openly with our Kerr-Knackers,
And felt for poor old J.R. Hartley

No mobile phones for us, we stood where pee’ers
Had queued to flood red kiosks, leave them manky,
Put the same receiver to our mouths and ears,
And coughed and sneezed inside, without a hanky

The illnesses we faced weren’t quite so queer,
We’d never heard of SARS, nor of AIDS, either;
We did have Hong Kong flu, which was severe,
But best of all was something called ‘Night Fever’;

Our airwaves overflowed with TV royalty,
Kenny Everett, Frankie Howerd, Bruce Forsyth,
Fanny Craddock, Eric Morecambe, Shirley Bassey
And the Ogdens, Stan and Hilda, man and wife

We had three channels (and that was an improvement),
No remote control, we went to the TV
(So to find out what was on required ‘movement’!),
Though our continuity announcers we could see

Some of the favourite programmes we have charted
Down whole decades, now were barely on the go;
Coronation Street – ‘ten’, and Emmerdale – just started,
As had Bungle, George and Zippy, on Rainbow

And it was cinema, not Netflix, a big difference,
Slotting into vacant seats as long queues parted,
We never thought it strange that as a consequence
We’d see the ends of films before they’d started

‘James Bond’ was Roger Moore, cheating crocs, and grappling ‘Jaws’,
Though I have to say I did prefer another;
Connery, Sean, ‘sexploits’ galore, and a real Scot to the core,
Who, whilst hirsute, still wore a ‘rug’ – essential ‘cover’

TV detectives solved their mysteries every week night,
Eyeing up the red herrings and spotting the mumbo-jumbo;
McMillan, McCloud and Kojak hit the heights,
As – with one eye less – did mackintoshed Lieutenant Columbo

We had C & A and Woolies, British Home Stores,
The Kay’s catalogue, ‘Avon Calling’ – but, the fiddle?
No chance to queue by as yet still closed shop doors
To view the wonders of the middle aisle at Lidl

We’d eat meat pies, and our burgers out of tins,
No falafel, nor much pasta did we ship in;
And there was never any room for vitamins,
Our stomachs were too full of bread and drippin’

We slurped on penny chews that they called ‘Mojos’,
Used fires and prongs, eschewed new fangled toasters,
We used to carry round transistor radios
And plastered bedroom walls with football posters

Each November, ‘Miss World’ crowned, millions saw it,
Pan’s People would gyrate, and twist, and bend,
And Charlie had his angels (Farrah Fawcett),
And then Hot Gossip came along at decade’s end

Same month, and Guy Fawkes’ effigies were ubiquitous,
‘Penny For The Guy’, not ‘Trick Or Treat’, was our folk lore;
The only bloke we saw more of was Father Christmas,
Who spent all December at each and every department store

Our first safari parks, a thrill, came to be sited
At places like Longleat, and Woburn Abbey;
Zoos’ reputations – just then – started getting blighted
As their facilities were becoming a little shabby

There were fabled love lives that went by the book,
But our own endeavours seemed inclined to falter;
Perhaps we’d have fared better if we’d looked
Like David Essex, or we’d danced like John Travolta

So our own sexual prowess we inflated
In our mind’s eye, down the years, by word of mouth;
Now we’re left with but the fantasy we created,
As everything’s gone limp, or ‘headed south’

Chocolate bars seemed so much larger and much bigger,
As got certain parts of our own younger anatomy
(Meaning they piled pounds on our waists and on our figures!);
Chaps, which did you think I had in mind as enlarging rapidly?!!

In came decimal currency, and out went all the dud
Old coinage of the realm, like ‘threepenny bits’
(Half the worth of sixpences in Christmas puds,
But not just rhyming slang, for…was it a pair of ‘mitts’?!)

Benny Hill and Larry Grayson came on TV
Pedalling just such fabulous ‘smut’, and we were ardent
In our sexual innuendo, no PC
(A rank in the police force beneath sergeant);

We fought Rising Damp, Porridge laid out crime and punishment,
Basil Fawlty held to account the entire Third Reich,
With ‘Yes you did, you invaded Poland’, the famous admonishment;
Dad’s Army’s could only be ‘Don’t tell him, Pike!’

Catchphrases – ten a penny, some old, some new,
‘Look at the muck in here’, and ‘Seems like a nice boy…’,
‘Ooh Bett-y’, ‘Shut that door’ and ‘Nice to see you’,
‘Didn’t he do well?’, when they’d won the cuddly toy

The Generation Game’s conveyor belt, a barometer
Of the prizes Wogan’s Blankety Blank would lack,
Was rivalled only by old Hughie Green’s fabled Clap-O-Meter
(Which had somebody pushing the needle at the back)

There was the ‘Rumble In The Jungle’, and the ‘Thriller In Manilla’,
Ali v George Foreman, then versus Joe Frazier,
Joe Bugner’s glove was always though more steady on the tiller,
So his title tilts were all but doomed to failure

This decade was not ever short on passion,
Twas either Ovett, or Seb Coe, that you adored,
And you lent support, in similar avid fashion,
To McEnroe, or (me) to Bjorn Borg

Wrestling bouts were shown on Saturday afternoons,
From Town Hall venues at the likes of Fife, Kirkcaldy;
Two submissions, or two falls, these times were boons
For Giant Haystacks, and the fat gutted Big Daddy

And to take the F.A. Cup was all that mattered,
We loved ‘Crossroads’, (wrongly) treated with derision,
No national persona bruised and battered,
So a time when we could still win Eurovision

Tommy Cooper fluffed his tricks, left, right and centre,
Bob Monkhouse and Des O’Connor both would hurtle
Through comic monologues, with zero misadventure-
But no one fluffed their lines like Amy Turtle

Impersonators just abounded, leaving audiences astounded,
The top shows – Freddie Starr’s, and then Mike Yarwood’s;
No one’s voice ever confounded, strange just how alike they sounded,
So many Wilson’s, Brian Clough’s and Michael Crawford’s

Bonnie Langford started out, my, how she could ‘thkweem’ and shout,
‘Cut that child’s throat’, Noel Coward joked, but fate was kinder;
Typecast as the loveable lout, when ‘The Sweeney’ lost its clout,
Dennis Waterman moved – to set up shop as ‘Minder’

A Multi-Coloured (Swap) Shop opened, on the BBC,
Noel Edmonds was too slick, perhaps as his was
A style he’d nurtured several years, presenting on TOTP,
Unlike Chris Tarrant’s and Sally James’, over on Tiswas

‘It’s A Knock-Out’ filled our screens with honest triers,
Against Switzerland (CH) and Deutschland (D),
Commons’ Question Time bristled with cheats and liars,
When it first aired on our radio (not TV)

VTR was all the rage, B-B-Q the latest craze,
The C Of E would lock its horns with the BBC;
JR fixed us with his gaze, no IKEA in those days,
And chimps rode bikes, and played piano, and drank PG

News readers all wore ties, no legs, no bodies, thighs
On display; though less severe, there was still etiquette;
So Angela Rippon was a surprise, when she danced with Morecambe and Wise
(Though no one read the news like Reggie Bosanquet!)

And they would interrupt the programmes with ‘newsflashes’,
Breaking stories that would have us most agog;
PMs’ sudden resignations, airline crashes,
Or poor old Elvis dying, sitting on the bog

It was ‘de rigueur’ to become a union member,
We had three day weeks, and strikes, focused on coal,
But times were not as miserable as some remember,
We had glam rock, we had disco, we had soul…

Our sartorial role models did impress,
Unlike reality TV, and styles on ‘TOWIE’;
Why, we drew our inspiration how to dress
From the likes of Elton John, and David Bowie!

So we chose bell-bottoms, flares and drainpipe trousers,
Or wore jeans so tight they killed us at the crutch;
Wonderful clothes, so memory allows us,
And pullovers, like Starsky, and like Hutch

                     *******************

But the years speed by; and, now the hair and body
You splashed with Brut, all over, strewed with glitter,
Boast not one single hair or muscle, bald and saggy –
Don’t let the mirror in your hand make you feel bitter

And as for those that scoff, I’d say – feel pity, never cuss,
Content yourself such wonders they’ll not see,
For as surely as they’ll hear Slade every Christmas,
This was ‘the real life’, not ‘just fantasy’

So if you don’t think that the seventies amounted
To ‘sensational’ after all, then I don’t care;
Your opinions can all but be discounted
‘Gainst my own; you see, I was – and am, still – there!