When I Was Young Poem by Colin Ian Jeffery

When I was young, soul slate-clean
Thinking myself immortal
With long hard icy winters
Freezing landscapes lasting months
Snowmen carrot nosed with eyes of coal
Children tobogganing laughing with delight
Racing downhill on upturned milk crates.

Long bright adventurous summers
Never seeming to end.
Building tree camps in woods
Playing cowboys and Indians
Thinking girls were silly
Not liking football, frogs and mice
Wanting to play kiss chase with the boys.

Weekly pocket money of sixpence
Given by father for Saturday morning cinema
Enjoying ice lollies in crowded stalls
Cheering Hop-a-long Cassidy and Roy Rogers
Booing black-hatted cowboy villains
Sweets rationed, gobstoppers, fizzy saucers
Bull eyes, sticky toffee, and chocolate bars.

Living in street with no doors locked
Friendly neighbours always ready to help
Bank holiday day trips to seaside Brighton
Paddling in warm sea, building sand castles
Eating fish and chips from newspapers
Chewing sticks of pink peppermint rock
Brighton's name all the way through.

Cinema with family on Wednesday nights
Hot meat pie us each on way home
Carried high on my father's shoulders
Over field at back of our house.
Mother's kisses and loving hugs
Stories read by father at bedtime
Precious delightful things when I was young.