• From: The Land Of Song
  • Registered: 2007-12-10
  • Posts: 5,849

Topic: Living Memories

Living Memories

by Phill Williams July 2026.

As the years leave their marks on my ageing bones.
I recall and yearn for the days of yore.
When I could run through fields and swim in streams.
Build dens in rushes and play in dunes.
Another day climb giant trees.
Hide on branches, obscured by leaves.
Innocence, mischief, knock on knocker.
Running errands; “bob a job, sir?”
Hot summer days with road tar melting.
Industry sounds; the noise of smelting.
Bus bell “ding” once for stop, twice for go.
Saturday morning, matinee show.
Cheap Jack stall in the bustling market.
“Everything a tanner”, I never had it.
The world was as bad then as it is now.
Did my mates and me worry? Did any ten year old?
School was annoying. Those cars in the way.
Coming or going “ but we're playing a game.”
Summers were hot; down the beach in the sea.
Winters were cold; snow, rivers freeze.
One phone in the village in a box on the corner.
Trade it you ask, no chance, your honour.
That mobile is handy and saved many lives.
And satellites fly high above those high flying clouds.
As long as my mind remembers and I breathe.
May those memories live, who'll remember me? 

Ask not what Chordie can do for you, but what you can do for Chordie.

Phill Williams's Website

  • Registered: 2015-07-31
  • Posts: 2,944

Re: Living Memories

Brilliant poem Piri. Some of those lines apply to how it was down here in New Zealand when I was a boy.  Simpler times with less complications for kids with very little we could do a lot. There seemed to be less anxiety or stress, and people just got on with life.     

  • From: The Land Of Song
  • Registered: 2007-12-10
  • Posts: 5,849

Re: Living Memories

Thanks Pedr. It was written from a Welsh/UK perspective and all lines are from my memory and happened. Some of the terms I used translated;
TANNER= six pense.
KNOCK ON KNOCKER= at night time knock on a door and run and hide, funnier at the time I suppose.
BOB A JOB= an old boy scouts thing for collecting money for charity. a bob is a shilling.
SMELTING= there was a factory in Llanelli that received pig iron from other steel works and re-melted, smelted, to form more manageable ingots. This was done in the Llanelli steel works also known as the KK works (Klondike)
DING = a signal on the double decker busses, one for stop, two for go
back in the 1950s cars were few and far between so playing on the roads was fairly safe, not so much house windows     

Ask not what Chordie can do for you, but what you can do for Chordie.

Phill Williams's Website

  • From: Wellington New Zealand
  • Registered: 2010-03-24
  • Posts: 1,460

Re: Living Memories

great poem phill,i can relate to much of it.     

The King Of Audio Torture
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  • Registered: 2010-05-11
  • Posts: 3,506

Re: Living Memories

That is just outstanding literature
Personal, historical and cultural
That relates to places all over the world.
My brothers used to play stick ball in the streets
Well Done.     

The price of anything, is the amount of life you exchange for it.   - H.D. Thoreau
Your vision is not limited by what your eye can see, but what your mind can imagine.
Make your life count, and the world will be a better place because you tried.
"Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except only the the best." - Henry Van Dyke
  • From: The Land Of Song
  • Registered: 2007-12-10
  • Posts: 5,849

Re: Living Memories

Thanks Brian and Jim. Childhood memories are the best (even if they weren't)     

Ask not what Chordie can do for you, but what you can do for Chordie.

Phill Williams's Website