How do you measure the passing decades?
Is it by counting your amassing grey hairs.
Through holidays listed on your calendar?
Or remembering when you wore flares.

Maybe recalling the different cars you’ve owned.
Or friends who have come and gone.
The changing shops in the high street.
The warmer clothes you now need to put on.

Saying ‘remember when’ as you watch the TV,
Or when you come across an old newspaper.
Asking Alexa if an old celebrity is still alive.
When decorating, you find layers of old wallpaper.

Scouring the obituaries, with a sad face of course.
Looking at jewellery and recalling its provenance.
Remembering your old land-line phone number.
And uncle Tommy’s stories of his reconnaissance.

Recalling when nearly every corner had a pub,
And high street banks were all the rage.
Pounds, shillings a pence, pre-decimalisation.
And when King Kong escaped from his cage.

Asking just for a simple coffee in a café.
Not perusing a menu of different kinds.
When curtain twitching was a pastime.
Well before people had Venetian blinds.

Remembering a stamp cost four pence in 1974.
When matches were needed to light the cooker.
When telephone boxes were on most streets.
Not seeing coloured balls on TV watching the snooker.

You may remember when your neighbours moved in.
The numbers of the busses that took you into town.
When fog in November was always a Pea-Souper.
Holes in the picture rail when your deccies came down.

Recalling when you phoned the speaking clock.
Perusing the Greenshield stamps’ catalogue.
Shopping in the Army and Navy Stores in Old Swan.
Manually changing channels on the TV as a sprog.

Recollecting when men wore ties every single day.
When hats were doffed when a hearse went by.
And gentlemen walked on the kerb side of a lady
When it wasn’t a mental health issue when someone was simply shy.

Do you think back to policemen being on the beat.
To when televisions were the size of a large crate of beer.
When you wore loons and cheese cloth shirts.
And red platform shoes completed your gear.

We worry about the decreasing time we have left.
But still there are some things we have to do.
We measure time by the things we achieve.
Like decorating one more time and tightening that loose screw.

There’s no measuring time in eternity - its endless.
Make sure you’ve done all you want before you leave.
Have no regrets and don’t think I should have done more.
Because that’ll be it, it’s over; you’ll have nothing else up your sleeve.