Tonight I Feel A Bit Nostalgic Poem by Francis Duggan

Tonight I feel a bit nostalgic I have drunk one or two too many beers
I think of the people I once knew I go back the decades of years
The people I met in my travels good memories of them I retain
And them I will always remember though we never may meet again.

The men and the women I once knew with fondness them I do recall
I never did meet a bad person one common thread that did bind us all
Is that we were working class people we did share a similar background
And when one was having an off day the others would rally around.

In Ireland I worked as a logger in temperatures of zero degrees
On cold mornings in depths of Winter the gray frost was on the spruce trees
And when the chainsaw it was switched off the silence it did seem profound
The babble of the stream flowing through the woodland was the only natural sound.

In Pembrokeshire I picked potatoes well over three decades ago
The people I worked with good people with them the bond of friendship did grow
We worked together and drunk together and made merry but suppose nothing ever does last
Yet in us all there is a longing for the days that we knew of the past.

Our happy nights we spent in Buninyong with our mates in the old Crown Hotel
We enjoyed the beer and the sing song my memory at times serves me well
Perhaps we did drink that bit too much and with a hangover did pay
But we were at work the next morning and until knock off worked hard all day.

Tonight I have drunk one too many the grog it has gone to my head
But the longer we live it has been said the sooner that we will be dead
I have had some wonderful memories and so very lucky am I
And if I should breathe my last tomorrow a happy life I did enjoy.