Old Man's Tale

At the turning of the century I was a lad of five
My father went to fight the Boers and never came back alive
My ma was left to bring us up, no charity she'd seek
She washed and scrubbed and scrapped along on seven and six a week

I was twelve I left the school to go and find a job
With growing kids my ma was glad of the extra couple of bob
Now I know that longer schooling would have stood me in good stead
But you can’t afford refinement when you’re struggling for your bread

When the Great War came along I didn’t hesitate
I took the royal shilling and went off to do my bit
We lived in mud and tears and blood, three years or thereabouts
Till I copped some gas in Flanders and got invalided out

Well when the war was over and we'd settled with the Hun
We got back into civvies and we thought the fighting done
We'd won the right to live in peace but we didn't have such luck
For we found we had to fight for the right to go to work

In '26 the General Strike found me out in the streets
Though I'd a wife and kids by then, their needs I had to meet
A new world it was coming with a brotherhood of man
But when the struggle it was over we were back where we began

I wondered through the Thirties out of work now and again
I saw the Blackshirts marching, the things they did in Spain
I brought my kids up decent, sure I taught them wrong from right
But Hitler was the man who came and taught them how to fight

My daughter was a landgirl, she got married to a Yank
My eldest son received a gong for stopping Rommel's tanks
He caught some shrapnel in the side and convalesced in Rome
Got married to an Eyetie nurse and never bothered to come home

My daughter writes me once a month, a cheerful little note
About the colour telly and those other things she’s got
She's had a boy, young likely lad, he's nearly twenty-one
She tells me that he’s been called up to fight in Vietnam

I’m living on the pension now, it doesn't go too far
Not much to show for a life that seems like one long bloody war
When you think of all the wasted lives it makes you want to cry
I don’t know how to change things, but by Christ we've got to try