U3A Writing: A Winter's Tale
Mike Eastwood looks back longingly at the snowy winters of his boyhood.
Oh why can,t it snow in the winter
It used to when I was a kid
It would come over the top of your wellies
An' be six inches deep on’t bin lid
We started to sledge before Christmas
An carried on thro into Spring
We’d chapped legs an wet trousers an chilblains
Because of the snowballs we’d fling
There hardly was any traffic
The roads were as clear as could be
What cars there were couldn’t make it
Up the hills that we sledged down you see.
There were those that hadn't got sledges
So they used a tin tray instead
But they were difficult to ride on
So we often went two to a sled
The snowmen we built were all big uns
With bits of coal for their eyes
A nice red carrot, mi dads bowler hat
An if we could get it a tie
They seemed to last longer in those days
An when you looked out in the dark
You could swear that you could see em movin
It really was such a lark.
Now we sit in the garden at Christmas
It isn’t the same thing at all
Instead of the sledgin and sliding
We ave to make do with football.
The Christmassy lights don’t look right now
As they swing on the wires in the rain
They seem to have lost all their magic
And really look terribly plain.
Perhaps It’s because we are older
That nothing seems nearly as nice
As the winters when we were all children
And the world was covered in ice.
