WHATEVER HAPPENED? (Paul O’Brien)
All kinds of everything.
The strangest things keep me busy I know
Like what happened golliwogs, where did they go?
Conductors on busses and smoking upstairs
Or not going to sleep without saying your prayers
Tip-tops and sliders and pyramids cool
And the small rolls of biscuits for bringing to school
And remember collecting Civil War Cards?
And looking for swaps in the break in the yard
What happened tot me and
what happened to you?
Whatever happened
to coddle and stew?
The onions and tripe and the ould lumps of lard
The evenings gathered around playing cards
Newmarket, poker and the kids would play snap
You didn’t miss nothing ‘cos the telly was crap
With an I.Q. of seven you could get really far
Playing Quicksilver with the bold Bunny Carr
And the Riordans with Benji and ould what’s his name?
And the school around the corner was always the same
What happened …….
Saturday mornings getting killed in the rush
When newlyweds threw up the coins for the grush
And the flowers that used to be trun by the brides
And the grooms with their brillcream and short back and sides
We got wages in packets, counted in punts
When we had a strike it could go on for months
And we used to put shillings in meters for gas
And cut up the Herald for to wiping our arse
Of all of the stories and songs we did sing
Sure these are a few of me favourite things
Though it’s hard to remember but I want you to know
If there’s nowhere to come from you’ve nowhere to go
My fate has been sealed the die it is cast
You can keep your old future, I just want the past
It was warm, it was sunny and the people were kind
And there’s such a lot of it left in my mind