I feel I must apologize for my generation:
born into the 'never had it so good' fifties
to grow through days when all was free or full;
love, prescriptions, education
(all fees and maintenance paid);
could walk into a well paid low-skilled job to drift
walk out again in days of full employment
(until that dark Hag came);
never had to fight a war; no basic training broke-in
(no compulsory National Service) -
last of the great early-retirement deals
and generous occupational pensions.
Now we seem to take a delight in myths
of our own independence - we with the
silver spoon of the state in our mouths -
applaud the selfish petty tenets of Hag Thatcher
or Post-Thatcherist-Thatcherism
pretty much the same mean level down
under the Moloch of Capitalism,
the stupidity of striking an attitude
against the tempest of the factual
happy to burden the younger with debts
we never bore,
and the final straw
to cut them from the opportunities
in Europe, trapping them with us,
psychotically, in a sinking car.
Too far... too far... 'further out than I thought'....
