So you didn’t get enough of my rhyming Seventies’ stuff,

The last time you chose to visit this new website?

Well, don’t forget they’re off the cuff, so a few may well prove duff,

But let’s hope that you find none of them that…trite

We were waiting for some crucial innovations,

Milk just in bottles, no breakfast bars, no frozen chips;

Bar fish and chips, fast food met reservations,

A McDonald’s meal had never passed our lips

We were loathe in the extreme to go relinquish

Our cakes and chocolate, when the experts warned us some

Strange ‘cholesterol’ was about – but what of that? – we couldn’t distinguish

If ‘cellulite’ was round our elbows or our bum

We munched Marathons, we sucked Opal Fruits and Spangles,

Not Snickers, nor Starburst, the later trends;

We still had Jubblies (in cardboard cartons, with umpteen angles)

And there were boxes of candied chocolates called Week-End

There was a better mix of programmes in our living rooms,

Wall-to-wall soaps weren’t back then considered right;

Documentaries and comedies, music, sport and kids’ cartoons;

The best programmes, as we knew, were on Saturday night

The Generation Game’s contestants were persuaded

To try their hand at all sorts of malarkey;

Yesteryear’s film stars were flown in, and paraded

To spill the beans, and chew the cud, with nosey Parky

We’d heard of ‘Little Women’, but, no, never

‘Loose Women’ (though we’d heard ‘Having a screw loose’);

Did they fall apart? And do they need putting back together?

Their frank discussions would have left us shades of puce

Daytime TV hosts we’d never really seen,

There were no magazine type shows upon the telly;

A poorer world without them on our screen –

No Richard and Judy, no Philip and Holly, and no Lorraine Kelly

(Until he went to GB News, do you want the honest truth?

Here too would have served their stand-ins – Eamonn Holmes and Ruth!)

Rolf Harris (shh!) drew pictures, and would get us

Wondering ‘What it was’ his brushstrokes might achieve;

And Val Doonican, with his rocker and thick sweaters,

Was always prone to pop up Christmas Eve

We had ‘Emanuelle’, and its sequels, different stars, but same old plot!

But there are those who think erotica has its pluses;

Brando’s ‘Last Tango In Paris’, too, was tame, compared to what

We were led to believe was happening ‘On The Buses’

There were coach trips to our favourite destinations,

And buses, too, went around safari parks;

We’d go and view Blackpool Illuminations,

And its funfair, with Ghost Train, and Noah’s Ark

We loved Devon, Cornwall and their country lanes,

Travel agents though saw profit going further;

So we hopped on board our very first aeroplanes

To take our package holidays in Costa Brava

Inter-City was the brand upon our railways,

Space at a premium, not much at all, by any means;

And on Fridays (even worse than other week-days)

They’d squeeze you in as tight as tinned sardines

Alarm clocks were wound, and kettles sang

On hobs, not plugged in walls;

Televisions ‘warmed up’, and telephones rang,

Didn’t take photos, didn’t play music, didn’t list calls

No passwords to remember, loads and loads,

Credit and debit cards were for the pampered few;

OAPs had pension books, and no pin codes,

So you couldn’t forget and delay the entire queue

We paid our bills in person, and we never

Thought we’d be paying them by phone (a daft hypothesis);

You paid water, with rates or rent, in one, together;

You paid your gas bill, why, where else? At the Gas Offices

When it came to party leaders, and our vote,

Two alternatives were all we’d really got;

Harold Wilson, pulled on his pipe, and wore a raincoat;

Edward Heath, pulled on his organ, sailed a yacht

There was never talk of Brexit, as we’d only just joined up,

Less than thirty years since we had won the war;

The EEC was full of wine lakes, butter mountains, what a pup,

But it made a change instead just to ‘jaw-jaw’

War in Vietnam came finally to an end,

Watergate, and Richard Nixon, came and went;

By ’78, most folks were driven round the bend,

As the freeze set in – and our Winter of Discontent

No one there could ever, ever forget the summer

Of ’76, it was a scorcher, a right belter;

To be stuck indoors, at work, was quite a bummer;

But at least you had a place where you could shelter

‘New balls’ at Wimbledon, and back came tennis,

Where strawberries and cream were the done thing;

Dan Maskell – ‘Oh, I say!’ – and how could one miss

Its bespectacled superstar, Billie-Jean King?

Chris Evert wed John Lloyd, it didn’t last, though;

Evonne Goolagong was a particularly graceful mover;

There were umpires cursed, lambasted by John McEnroe,

And those who simply couldn’t say ‘Navratilova’

No access to the toilets for football fans who (still were) stood,

They’d have scoffed at prawns in sandwiches, and falafel;

So they’d relieve themselves, and piss in someone’s pocket, if they could,

And crammed their face with meat pies, and drank Bovril

At random, how many here can you remember?

Try Richard O’Sullivan, or Kate Bush, Asterix The Gaul;

Noddy Holder (who still emerges each December),

Marjorie Proops, Christina Onassis and Pope John Paul

So we’ve traipsed down Memory Lane, and here we are, right back again,

From when our faculties and strength were at their peak;

But though it’s a total pain, now that our memories wax and wane,

Hold on to this – these were Good Times (just go ask Chic!)