More from the memory vaults you’ll find inviting;
The good old ‘Bad Old Days’ they probably were;
The years have just flashed by, much like ‘Greased Lightning’,
But you ‘Never Can Say Goodbye’ – would you concur?

Since you left school, have you used Trigonometry?
Needed Geography (except to read a map)?
Physics, Algebra, and, laugh out loud, Geometry,
All a waste of time – and utter, utter crap

Exams, we hoped, would find us in fine fettle,
Breathalysers told just how much drink and beer we
Were allowed; ‘Blow in’; a test of nerve and mettle;
We took a driving test, but never sat a ‘theory’

A teacher’s lot was one at which we’d baulk,
Pubescent adolescents boding ill;
They’d pull our ear, just shout, or still throw chalk,
‘Knocking spots off’ faces drenched in Clearasil

Kids today are sassier, know how to cater
For their on-line fix of violence, sex and gore;
We stopped believing in Father Christmas so much later,
When nearly teens (though I myself was twenty-four)

Decorations for the tree, Christmas, beguiled, ‘good’
Taste in decor didn’t matter, we’d throw on so
Very many that we had kept right though our childhood,
And we acquired our cans of artificial snow

Girls and boys had separate toys, we’d strictly usher
Each gender down the paths they’d choose for kicks;
Sindy and Barbie for the one, footballs the other –
No sister meant to covet Scalextric!

The big thing back then was of course the Disco,
Super Troupers, noise and hanging glitter balls;
But just ‘the dance’, really; the place where all the kids go
To smooch, or jive, get bouncing off the walls

Demis Roussos’ visual image was a rum one,
But he had all the women screaming (for a fat man);
To get that famous high pitched voice he, course, had someone
Sat squeezing tightly both his balls beneath his kaftan

‘Never seen Star Wars’, but never mind, huge numbers of us did;
At the Oscars, Meryl Streep would take top prize, and
Butch Cassidy had his sidekick, the legendary Sundance Kid;
And Robert Redford starred in that film with Barbra Streisand

Multiplexes would have seemed a pointless nightmare,
Odeon’s and Gaumont’s were what back then we knew as customary;
In theatre, Rice and Webber were now set fair,
And pantomimes still played the end of February

Esther Rantzen ran ‘That’s Life’, and it was laden
With puns; consumer issues formed its headlines;
Some ideas she’d fetched from time with Bernard Braden,
But not so ‘Soss-ig-es’ (as voiced by talking canines)

Cyril Fletcher would appear, to read his ‘Odd odes’,
Jake Thackeray sang, in folk style, both were good;
And after these, well, she recruited, in the same mode,
The incomparable, and much missed, Victoria Wood

There were comedies where ne’er a single swear word
Was needed, it was wit and charm drew laughter;
Situations, and sharp dialogue, like ‘The Liver Birds’,
‘Butterflies’, ‘Steptoe’ and ‘Happy Ever After’

‘The Comedians’ showcased Northern comedy like
Bernard Manning’s and Frank (‘It’s the way I tell ’em’) Carson’s;
From down South, Bernie Winters and elder brother Mike,
And, from Norwich, ‘Sale Of The Century’, and Nicholas Parsons

US sitcoms came along, pointed and droll,
Remember ‘Soap’? The Tates and Campbells got quite nasty;
But none was quite as biting as the role
That little Danny DeVito milked in ‘Taxi’

We watched Noele Gordon, doyenne of the Midlands motel
We called ‘Crossroads’, with its in later years far fetched plot;
‘The Love Boat’, though, was more a floating hotel,
Anne Aston couldn’t count on ‘The Golden Shot’

The Street’s Ken Barlow spent eight episodes secluded
With Joanna Lumley (she we associate with Gurkhas);
‘Bit stilted there, that reference, why include it?’ –
The only rhyme for ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus’

Lenny Henry was so proud to come from Dudley,
Did impressions of Ali, and of Frank Spencer;
Dudley Moore marked up a ’10’, though short and cuddly,
And made it past the Hollywood film censor

There was Magnus Pyke, with arms akimbo, whirring,
And Magnus Magnusson, of the famous black leather chair;
Mrs Slocombe’s pussy was never, in fact, seen purring –
And Dickie Davies’s…well, thank God nowt of his got exposed on air

No Sky Sports for us, and no, no running update
On scores right round the country, spring through winter;
No, we’d have to wait to find out our team’s fate
From ‘Sports Report’, or off the teleprinter

Lifting the F.A.Cup, that was the prize day,
We had leagues with proper names, One through to Four;
With big business and high finance years and years away
The shirts bore just players’ numbers, and no more

‘Match Of The Day’ marched on, replete with its new theme tune,
Wednesday evening was ‘Sportsnight’, with David Coleman;
Two Olympics, and gold medals to festoon
Olga Korbut, and Mark Spitz, and Lasse Viren

Darts players hauled their bellies and fine torsos
From the oche, up and down, and to and fro;
Jocky Wilson, ‘Crafty Cockney’ Eric Bristow,
And the inordinately poker faced John Lowe

Princess Anne rode at the Montreal Olympics,
Sports personality of the year, in the annual poll;
Wed Mark Phillips, and then bravely rode a right fix
When a gunman tried to kidnap her on The Mall

Strikes seemed mass produced, round coal and docks, and cars, with deuced
British Leyland on the news each night, so long;
Red Robbo ruled the roost, so a few thought it a boost
When, in ’79, Margaret Thatcher came along…

Well, we’ve come back once again from a decade far away,
But which will stay forever precious in our hearts;
All this was ours, so stand your ground, and tell the youngsters of today
We had it all; and we were young – not just old farts…