OAP

They`d done the swings and fed the ducks, and he was getting tired.

`Grandad, what`s an OAP?` the little girl enquired.

`Well dear, its someone who remembers a long, long time ago,

`When life was very different and the pace was rather slow.

 

` The baker came with his horse and van, the milkman pushed his float,

`The coalman had his horse and cart and leather hat and coat.

`The onion man from France would always push his bike,

`But "Wallsie" with his ices would pedal on his trike.

 

`We paid for goods with shillings and pence, or sometimes a note for a pound,

`A penny would buy a sticky bun or a ride on a merry go round.

`Even a farthing was worth a lot, it would get a liquorice strip,

`And a fiver would take a man and his wife for a holiday trip.

 

`No ordinary folk had motor cars, most travelled on a train,

`Or on a noisy tramcarwith no roof to stop the rain.

The drivers and conductors all wore uniforms and ties,

`There were porters on the stations and meat in railway pies.

`Some things you take for granted, hadn`t been invented,

`Like Sellotape, and ballpoint pens and aerosols all scented.

`Our toilet was outside the house without electric light,

`And the kitchen was our bathroom - every Friday night.

 

`We didn`t have computers then, or craft in outer space,

`The microchips we wanted came with our cod or plaice.

`We didn`t have fish fingers or beer that was all froth,

`We had some lovely "spotted dick"

Mum cooked in hert best cloth!

 

`Mum never had a washing machine, she always had to cope

`With our clothes in the sink with a rub and scrub with a bar of Fairy soap.

`To dry she had the washing line or a clothes horse round the fire,

`She never had the luxury of a hot-air tumble drier.

 

`We had no television or, nor radio cassettes,

`No video recorders, and no big jumbo jets.

`We used to have the wireless, as the radio was known,

`And played one-sided records on a wind-up gramophone.

 

`Policemen used to walk the streets, and no one went in fear.

`But if a child should pinch a fruit, he`d get a clip about his ear.

`No lager louts or ticket touts, no muggers prowled the town,

`But if a burglar robbed a house the judge would send him down.

 

`You see, my dear`, the old man said, `we didn`t have a lot`,

`We had to work long hours for the wages that we got,

`But what we had and what we have is worth a pot of gold,

`It`s all the happy memories to remind us that we`re old`.

Brian Smith, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire.

COURTESY of the DAILY MAIL