1947 Poem by Sheena Blackhall

I was born in the year 1947, two years after WW2
A year before the NHS opened its wide umbrella
There were no signs or portents in the sky
Though ‘Oh what a beautiful morning' played on the nursing home radio

That year the Cold War started, lasting for four decades
My generation of Baby Boomers lived under the fear of nuclear war

Relatives came home from their tea plantations
Bell Laboratories invents the transistor.
The first mobile phone was created.
Thor Heyerdahl's balsa wood raft the Kon-Tiki,
Smashed into the teeth of a reef at Raroia

Hillary Clinton, David Bowie, Elton John were born that year
In the USA the sound barrier was broken
Walter Morrison invented the Frisbee.
Artificial Intelligence was created by Alan Turing
Who was persecuted for the fact of being gay

In Hungary, Denis Gabor invented the hologram
The Diary of Anne Frank was published
The CIA was established

The first of the Dead Sea Scrolls was found
The first Edinburgh International Festival was held

Princess Elizabeth married her Duke at Westminster Abbey
Their Royal wedding cake was 9 feet high
Sir Norman Hartnell designed the wedding gown
The dress was ivory, with 10,000 seed pearls.
There were 2000 guests invited to the ceremony
The couple received 10,000 telegrams
And more than 2500 gifts from around the world

My parents had no cd. No fridge. No supermarket. No TV
They warmed the house with coal
The world lived in a crackling Bakelite radio
Mother dried clothes on a pulley
Washed clothes on a wash board
Rinsed them out with a mangle
We dined on skink, on spall, on spam
With bread & butter pudding

Father shot hare and pheasant
Relatives gave us sacks of tatties
Mother darned socks, turned collars
Ran up clothes on a Singer sewing machine

It's a Wonderful Life was playing in the cinemas
There was a huge national post war debt

There was rationing, queueing for food, austerity
There was smog, croup, chilblains in Britain

But in Paris Edith Piaf sang La Vie En Rose
As only a sparrow could.