Loving TYCOONWOMAN’s blog about the approach of the big 50. She has included a poem from her youth that made me think about my first decade and what poem would I choose. So Ola, this is my response to your challenge:
Growing up in the fifties meant I had the Beacon Readers as an introduction to reading. I still have those stories on instant recall; the three Billy Goats Gruff and their march over the dangerous bridge, Chicken Licken and her fears that the sky would fall in. For some weird reason, I even liked to recite the lists of words at the back, words that rhymed, words that were similar, all seemed very soothing to chunter through just before sleep.
There wasn’t that much telly in the fifties. I remember listening to the radio, sorry, the ‘wireless’, more. But there again, there was Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men with their little ’weeeeed’ in the middle. I loved them to bits and saw no irony at all there! I also watched The Woodentops who I did regard as a bit freaky as their legs seemed impossibly straight and thick.
I was also an obsessive fan of cowboy films, usually backing the Red Indians to win. My eternal favourite TV serial was Champion the Wonder Horse, followed by The Lone ranger with his mate Tonto, the loyal Indian;
‘In the early days of the western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!"
I begged every wishbone I ever pulled till I was about 35 for a piebald black and white pony. Damn, it will never come true now I just told you that. I don’t care it is now not seen as quite politically correct, at least there were notions of truth and justice in it.
But my favourite poem? Hard to choose because I loved poetry as a child and had a big treasury that I would regularly plough through. Christina Rossetti was a fave I seem to recall. But how can you beat my eternal favourite – AA Milne and ‘Now we are Six’ which I read and reread and still read! Now I’m nearer 60 than 6, I‘ll just put a few choice extracts down:
Busy:
‘Perhaps I am a postman. No, I think I am a tram.
I’m feeling rather funny and I don’t know what I am.’
(I regularly quote that last line in my head.)
Binker
'Binker – what I call him - is a secret of my own,
And Binker is the reason why I never feel alone.'
(I am the sort of person who had a very real imaginary friend as a child and I am still sustained by inner conversations.)
Twice times
'There were Two little Bears who lived in a Wood,
And one of them was Bad and one of them was Good.
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times One-
But Bad Bear left all his buttons undone.
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times One-
But Bad Bear left all his buttons undone.
………….
They lived in the Wood with a Kind Old Aunt.
And one said "Yes'm" and the other said "Shan't!"
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times Four-
But Bad Bear's Knicketies were terrible tore.
And then quite suddenly (just like Us)
One got Better and the other got Wuss.
Good Bear muddled his Twice Times Three-
But Bad Bear coughed in his hand-ker-chee!
.............
They lived in the Wood with a Kind Old Aunt.
And one said "Yes'm" and the other said "Shan't!"
Good Bear learnt his Twice Times Four-
But Bad Bear's Knicketies were terrible tore.
And then quite suddenly (just like Us)
One got Better and the other got Wuss.
Good Bear muddled his Twice Times Three-
But Bad Bear coughed in his hand-ker-chee!
.............
There may be a Moral, though some say not;
I think there’s a moral, though I don’t know what.
But if one gets better, as the other gets wuss,
These Two Little Bears are just like Us.'
Oh I hope there is a moral, though I don't know what.....!
