Текст пісні
At the turnin' of the century I was a lad of five
Me father went off to fight the Boers and he never came back alive
Me mother she had to bring us up, no charity she'd seek
She rubbed and scrubbed and scraped along on seven and six a week
At the early age of thirteen years I left school and took a job
I knew my mother could do with the extra couple of bob
I know that longer schooling would have stood me better stead
But you can't afford refinements when you're struggling for your bread
And when the Great War started, well I didn't hesitate
I took the royal shilling and went off to do my bit
We fought in blood and sweat and mud for three years or thereabouts
Then I caught some gas in Flanders and got invalided out
And when the war was over and we'd settled with the Hun
We went back to our civvies for we thought the fighting done
We thought we'd won the right for peace but there was no such luck
For soon we found we had to fight for the right to go to work
In '26 the general strike saw me out on the streets
I had a wife and kids by then and their needs were hard to meet
But the brave new world was coming with the brotherhood of man
And when the strike was over we were back where we began
We struggled through the thirties out of work now and again
I saw the blue shirts marching and the things they did in Spain
I brought me kids up decent and I taught them wrong from right
Hitler was the lad who came and showed them how to fight
My daughter she's a land girl, she got married to a Yank
My son he got a medal for stopping one of Rommel's tanks
He was wounded near the end of the war and he convalesced in Rome
And he married a night-time nurse and never bothered to come home
My daughter writes me once a week a cheerful little note
About her colour telly and the other things she's got
She has a son, a likely lad, he's just turned twenty-one
But now she tells me he's been called up at 'Nam
We're living on the pension now and it doesn't go too far
Not much to show for a life that seems like one long bloody war