Old Bill's Dream

[Frank E Gibbard]

In an easy chair of the lounge of “Abide Ye Well”

A final home of residence for its elderly clientele,

An old yet youthful fellow was taking forty winks,

A smile betraying those inner thoughts he thinks;

As dreams will take you to a place you’d rather be,

A widower is transported to the age of he and she.

She, a palais dancer, a Ginger Rogers to his Fred,

He, a deft romancer once swept his wife off to bed.

Now among old codgers back then he cut a dash,

An Astaire lift (not stair lift) today seems rather rash.

Maybe in back seats of the Odeon or in his old Ford

Him and her, the couple, were never strictly bored.

Perhaps as Bill snoozes he and Jill are up Box Hill,

Them and all those kiddies as it was before the pill.

A past so viewed’s a better life he’d say to you for sure,

For all today’s thingamabobs to age there’s still no cure.

 

(Footnote:Box Hill is a tourist spot the summit of the North Downs Surrey)

[Benjamin]

I like the gentle and philosophical good humour which runs through this, particularly the reference to 'the pill'. How times have changed. G.

[Larsen M. Callirhoe]

very philosophical frank. tangible thoughts just on fred and ginger dances alone.

 

victor

[Frank E Gibbard]

Thanks Geoff and Larse.

[fdelano]

Frank, many of your thought pieces put me back in the English culture I loved way back in the late fifties. Some of your words have me sitting over one too many light ales in the Woolpacker pub in Kettering, a boy of twenty counting his few bob. For me it's a mood piece, for some unknown reason I can smell the fish and chips with vinegar, hot, piled in a newspaper cone. Now I can identify with the old codgers' dreaming. As Bob Hope would say, "Thanks for the memories," except when we sang, it became "Thanks for the mammeries."

 

fdh

[Frank E Gibbard]

Frank, many of your thought pieces put me back in the English culture I loved way back in the late fifties. Some of your words have me sitting over one too many light ales in the Woolpacker pub in Kettering, a boy of twenty counting his few bob. For me it's a mood piece, for some unknown reason I can smell the fish and chips with vinegar, hot, piled in a newspaper cone. Now I can identify with the old codgers' dreaming. As Bob Hope would say, "Thanks for the memories," except when we sang, it became "Thanks for the mammeries."

 

fdh

& thanks for relating, what a nostalgic wonderful response. Cheers, Frank.