Golliwogs, black and white minstrels and blackjacks,

No health concerns about our favourite snacks,

No world wide web link on TV shows,

No panic around when it finally snowed.

Swords made from sticks, climbing our favourite trees,

Learning our lessons by scraping our knees.

Collect bowls full of tadpoles to watch them turn into frogs

Nobody worried about "dangerous dogs"

I remember a time before PC

When people could say what they really could see.

I remember a time before political correctness.

When plumber and joiners,

Doctors and lawyers

Butchers and bakers

And yes candlestick makers

Students and teachers

Vicars and preachers

Vets with their pets, architects

Brickies and builders

Mechanics and welders

Sparkies and gardeners

And those wonderful farmers

Could say what they really meant.

A seaside trip in the school summer break

Remember real summers when the tarmac would bake?

Blackboards were blackboards, there was no Big Brother

We went outside and played games with each other.

If Dad took the car into town he had somewhere to park it

Betamax videos, proper outdoor markets

Bayko for building, rebound, buckaroo

Hornby railways and kerplunk too

A slip, trip or fall or a bump in the car

Nobody got sued, isn’t that just bizarre?

Slide rules at school, no mobile phones.

Grandparents would say how much we had grown.

Easter egg hunts at the local park

Playing out with our mates until it was dark

Sports days at school when to win was the goal

Playing tricks on the teacher, a clip round the earhole!

I remember the wall when at last it came down

NHS glasses, of course mine were brown

We had break time at school with little bottles of milk

Brylcreem made hair as smooth as silk

Short back and sides from a plank on the chair

Playing kerby with friends or ‘I double dare’

Knock down ginger, little Hovis loaves

7 and 6d school dinners, 70’s clothes!

Idiot mittens with strings up your arms

Flared pants were in fashion, paisley shirts were real smart

Safari suits for looking reet posh

Coal tar soap on the basin when we washed

Zinc mop buckets, wooden handled toothbrushes,

Dinky toy cars, meccano and rockets

Thunderbirds, stingray, XL5

And how Captain Scarlet could never die

ESSO blue paraffin, Green Cross Code Man

Korky the Cat, Desperate Dan

Morecambe and Wise, That Riviera Touch

Percy Thrower the gardener with the magical touch

Johhny Morris would give all the animals voices

Michael Bentine would give the Potties explosives!

Robert Harbin, David Nixon, Tommy Cooper too

Captain Pugwash, alphabet zoo

Watching Skippy, the bush kangaroo

Mister Benn, Mister Magoo

Love Heart sweets with those terrible rhymes

Playing out with your mates till God knows what time

Open coal fires, miners strikes

Having to go to bed by candlelight

Bicycles with great big bull horn bars

The very first skateboard, landing on your arse.

E Type jags, Ford Cortinas,

My dad being proud of his brand new Marina

FS1E’s, we called them fizzys

A lift home from school on my dads BSA was the business.

These are the things I remember so well

From my childhood, my youth, I bet you do as well.

You can think of your own memories I’m sure.

But these are some things I remember.

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