Remembrance Day 2001

 

‘I played Yum-Yum when I was here.’

The eyes glaze over: weak, moist, blue.

Today is dim but the past is clear.

 

He played Yum-Yum when he was here.

His friend over there was a school-maid too.

Today is dim but the past is clear.

 

The school had no girls when he was here.

The Housemaster’s daughter was all that he knew.

He yearned from afar but he never got near.

 

Now it’s co-ed, and in school plays here

Boys can be boys, and a female crew

Of singing starlets will croon in your ear.

 

The names of the fallen are read out here.

In the first eleven he played with two.

‘Yes, one died at Arnhem, one in Tangiers.’

 

He gazes around at the stern chapel – here

Where he sat as a boy, poked into his pew.

The bugle’s last post resounds in his ear.

‘I played Yum-Yum when I was here.’