Sixpenny Flicks Poem by C Richard Miles

Saturday mornings were sixpenny flicks,
Down at the Plaza, where we watched Tom Mix
And Laurel and Hardy, in black and white,
And saw Tom and Jerry squabble and fight.
We giggled and shook till it cut us in half
As wild Woody Woodpecker let out his laugh.
The Crazy Gang followed, chased by Keystone Kops
Who, in our books, were the top of the pops.
We soon became hungry and chose for our grub
Ice cream at the interval served in a tub
With a small wooden spatula, wolfing it down.
Then to quench raging thirst we toasted the town
With a sticky concoction of strawberry pop
Which bubbled and fizzed through the straw at the top
Of the moulded glass bottle at thruppence a go:
Very expensive in those days, you know.
Sometimes we chose to crunch packets of crisps
With blue-paper salt sachets you had to untwist.
After lights dimmed the main feature began:
A cowboy adventure or Robin Hood’s band.
We booed all the baddies and cheered the hero
Whilst all the way through, we proceeded to go
And suck our gobstoppers till our jaws were quite sore
And glimmering daylight crept round the door
Which signalled the end of the flickering screen
As we stood so obedient for “God save the Queen.”
On the way home we oft favoured perhaps
Chips, just a tanner’s worth, topped up with scraps
Which Eastwood’s Emporium served full of grease.
Then we rambled at leisure, quite at our ease,
Three miles on the towpath by the canal side
Or, if we were lucky, we’d hitch-hike a ride
On a holiday narrowboat half of the trip
Until we reached Snaygill, where we would jump ship
To run down the bank to open the bridge
For the passing flotilla and, if they were rich,
They’d sometimes throw pennies which paid for the fun
That we’d had at the pictures those years long since gone.