At the turning of the century,
I was a lad of five.
My father went off to fight the Boers
and he never came back alive.
My mother, she had to bring us up,
no charity she'd seek.
She rubbed and scrubbed
and scraped along
on seven and six a week
At the early age of thirteen years
I left school and took a job
I knew my mother could deal
with the extra couple above
I know that longer schooling
would have stood me better stead
But you can't afford refinements
while you're struggling for your bread
And when the Great War started,
well, I didn't hesitate
I took the royal shilling
and went off to do my bit
We fought in blood and sweat and mud
for three years or thereabouts
Then I caught some gas in Flanders
and got in the lead of doubt
And when the war was over,
and we'd settled with the hum,
We went back to our civvies,
for we'd thought the fighting
done.
We thought we'd won the
right for peace,
but there was no such luck,
For soon we found we had to fight
for the right to go to work
In twenty -six the general strike
saw me out on the street
I had a wife and kids by then
and their needs were hard to meet
But the brave new world was coming
with the brotherhood of man
And when the strike was over,
we were back where we began
We struggled through the thirties,
out of work now and again
I saw the blue shirts marching
and the things they did in Spain
They brought me kids up decent
and they taught them wrong from right
Hitler was the lad who came
and showed them how to fight
My daughter, she's a land girl
She got married to a Yank
My son, he got a medal
First up in one of Rommel's tanks
He was wounded near the end of the war
And he come blessed in Rome
And he married a night -time nurse
and never bothered to come home
My daughter writes me once a week
a cheerful little note
About her colour telly
and the other thing she's got
She has a son, a likely lad,
he's just turned twenty -one
But now she tells me he's
been called up at NAMM
We're living on the pension now
and it doesn't go too far
Not much to show for a life
that seems like one long bloody war
When I think of all the wasted lives,
it makes me want to cry
I'm not sure how we'll change things,
but by Christ we'll have to try