Category Archives: Past Times

The Bard’s Anniversary!

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Mr&Mrs BardMrs Bard has put up with me for thirty-four years! I have never understood what she saw in me but know that I got the better deal. I have been told that she always saw herself marrying a rugby-playing, dark-haired Welshman. How she ended up with a blonde-haired, fool-playing Englishman is a mystery. If you wish you may sing along to the tune: ‘I’m getting married in the morning’, or not…

We got married one bright May morning,
Nineteenth of the month, in seventy-nine!
I was only young then,
not long from my playpen!
But managed to get to the chapel on time!

We went on Honeymoon from docks at Dover,
Took the ferry, crossing was sublime!
I had dirty washing,
to my Bride this was just shocking,
But managed to get to the hotel on time!

Drove right down to the Italian coast then,
Had a friend to stay with, that was fine!
In my ancient Lancia,
we took a great big chance-ia,
But managed to get to Venice on time!

We’ve been married just for thirty-four years,
Even have a grandchild, that is fine!
I would recommend,
that you start off as a friend,
Then you’ll be married a very long time!

Dedicated with thanks and love to Mrs Bard and all our family and friends who have been so supportive during good times and bad.

© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above



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Once a Knight…always a Knight!

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Once a KnightI was poking my nose into some local history yesterday when I came across a tale of a mysterious knight that lived long ago. Adding together bits and pieces and making up what I couldn’t discover (like a true historian), I came up with his story. It may be slightly less than authentic, but it sounds good to me…

There once was a kindly knight,
Who was ever so polite,
He’d say to you,
before he ran you through,
“I don’t mean it, much, goodnight!”

One day while riding his horse,
He met a damsel in distress (of course!)
She swooned at his offer,
a lift he did proffer,
Carried her off without sign of force!

She bore him a son and an heir,
With the brightest and reddest ginger hair!
At the time of conception,
he ignored the reception,
So a knave nipped smartish in there!

The king took his knight off to war,
Was the last of him that she saw,
His words in the fight:
“That hurts, Ouch! Goodnight!”
And they buried him near Bangalore!

I bet a wonder you’ve one?
Whatever happened to the son?
He lost the plot,
was called Laugh-a-Lot,
Was the heir with the hair who was fun!

© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above



The Baldock Boot Sale is open every Saturday at 7am
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Good Times!

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IMG_8029Last September a friend bought me a magazine as a joke. I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but it was one of those that enable you to build up a set of irreplaceable collectors items in weekly parts. The one he gave me had a very smart Dickensian pocket watch attached to the front cover, and many pages packed with vital information about time-pieces. All for a very modest £2.99. We had a good laugh and I reciprocated by giving him the first instalment of a dolls house furniture magazine complete with full-size chest of drawers. My magazine is long-since recycled, however I found the watch the other day. In seven months and sixteen days it had lost just two minutes and seven seconds. It must have been genuine after all, thanks Tony…

You don’t know the good times till they’re gone
You may think these are bad times
You could be wrong
“Carpe Diem” – Seize the day
Tomorrow today will be yesterday
Life’s far too short not to get along
IMG_3394© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above



The Baldock Boot Sale is open every Saturday at 7am
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The Craze!

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI was driving through London yesterday and saw a troupe of young ‘scooter-ists’ on a pavement. This set me wondering (as you do when stuck in traffic!) of all the crazes that I have seen in my lifetime, from skateboarding through to the latest must-have shoot-‘em-up console game. Most have become lost in the mists of time, remembered only by aged bores, who long to grip the idiocy of youth one last time! Then I remembered the Sleek Streek balsa wood plane and in the midst of a chaotic London traffic scene, went off on one…
Sleekstreak2Years ago when I were a lad,
There was a craze, (which today, some would call sad!).
The Sleek Streek came in an original flat pack,
Balsa wood model (often arrived with a crack).
Construction was tricky with three fragile pieces,
Some uncles made them for nephews and nieces!
Wind the propeller around gently by hand,
This would stretch the long elastic band!
Then into the air with a gentle throw,
The propeller would spin and off it would go!
However landing was a much greater art,
Mostly it would crash and fall apart!
I remember a friend who went to my school,
Tried to land his on the swimming pool!
He’d even spent time making balsa wood floats,
…unfortunately it didn’t!

© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above



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Analogue Surprises!

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Analogue SurprisesDo you like surprises? It was time for an office clear-up. I had become fed up with the amount of paper cluttering up my desk. Why do companies do it? Do they honestly think that, when money is tight, anybody is going to show loyalty to their products just because they sent a badly-worded, poorly printed, piece of A4 that is personally addressed?  All it does is clutter my desk and give me a reason not to do business with them! While clearing out my office yesterday I came across two historic items from a bygone, analogue age…

I was having a good old clear out
Before an office avalanche!
There was enough waste paper,
To make a recycling branch!

I cleared away the danger zone,
Magazines by the score,
And came across part of the past,
I hadn’t seen before!

An ancient film (undeveloped),
Secrets trapped within.
And an analogue trip-planner of the UK,
Should I consign both to the bin?

The roads have changed immeasurably,
Some aren’t even shown!
And as for the pictures locked in the film,
I can’t possibly leave them unknown!

So watch this space in the future!
For when the pictures return,
If they’re any cringe making or embarrassing,
What secrets within, you might learn!

© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above

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Saturday Broadsheet!

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Saturday Broadsheet 1Many years ago, when I was at school, I did a paper-round. Early each morning, I’d collect the papers from the newsagents in a large satchel, and cycle off around the Wiltshire town to make sure that customers had their newspaper at the breakfast table. We had to carefully put each newspaper (folded so that it didn’t rip), through letterboxes of differing sizes. Seeing the American version at the cinema many years later, where the paperboy seemed to randomly fling the papers onto the front lawn, I can remember being insanely jealous. Yesterday I bought a Saturday broadsheet. It was the first time for ages that I’d bothered buying a paper, preferring to choose what I read online. I was only too pleased that I was only carrying just one, any number to deliver and my old bike would have collapsed under the weight…

There’s 1,307gms in the Saturday paper,
That’s an awful lot of words,
As a paperboy, there’d be no joy,
In fact it’s quite absurd!

There are sections covering everything:
Supplements all abound,
So many sections, to suit all directions,
Literary abundance found!

How much longer can this weight continue?
The feeding of trees to the Press,
Recycled too, then flushed down the loo,
A worthy end I confess!

The old institutions backs to the wall,
Blinded, bleeding, unsure,
What they can’t see, that news is now free,
Fleet Street has been shown the door!

But what is this that is here now?
Sunday’s papers I see!
Even more weight, to help dislocate,
A paperboy’s joie de vie!
Saturday Broadsheet 2Dedicated to writers everywhere facing a new age with trepidation.
But especially to my two favourite journalists: Tony Lennox and his adorable and much-missed wife Marsya. May I one day come close to writing with their consummate skill. BB.

© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above

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Modern Regency Bath!

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Jane Austin StampsYesterday was a crisp frosty morning. On the way to cultivate some land ready for drilling beans I ran into Dolly the Horse’s support team. Apparently Dolly’s mummy, Charlotte, had gone on a hen weekend to Bath. I though Bath was very much a genteel, quiet-mannered, old-fashioned town, more used to literary festivals and time-warpers who dressed like Jane Austin. I was obviously wrong! The thought of it as a centre for raucous pre-marital high-jinks seemed an alien concept, however if it suits for Bath then there might just be hope for Baldock…

A hen party went to Bath,
Simply to have a laugh.
It wasn’t the drink,
Made them sick in the sink,
But a curry that made them all barf!
Getting Ready for Hens© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above

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St David’s Day

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Field of DaffodilsToday is St David’s Day. As the patron saint of Wales it is a day to celebrate all that is Welsh. Many Welshmen hope that the celebration carries over to March 16th when they play the ‘Old Enemy’ (England) rugby team in Cardiff. In my case it is also a day when I remember all those in the little Welsh village of Pembrey who welcomed a rather strange Englishman into their family so many years ago, they may mostly be gone now but the memory remains, diolch…

I wandered lonely on the hill,
On a mountain outside Rhyl
When all at once I saw yellow frills,
A host, of golden daffodils;

This can’t be the Lake District
With rain and gales!
On March the First,
This must be WALES!

With apologies (and respect) to W. Wordsworth Esq.
Thanks to Petr Kratochvil for the picture http://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Also a massive thank you to all of you who have visited this blog in my first year, all 25,390 of you! A million thanks to you all!

© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above

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Sad Old Letchworth

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Letchworth Feb 2013There is an old family story: Many years ago, at around the turn of the last century, my grandparents travelled in a pony and trap to look at two houses in the middle of a field. Everyone laughed at funny little man with a pointed beard, not only because he was a Quaker but because of his vision of a ‘Garden City’. The concept was revolutionary: Every house would have a big-enough garden to feed the family, an industrial area and shopping centre would be separate from homes to add value to the quality of home life and there were to be no pubs. Against all odds Ebenezer Howard’s vision became Letchworth Garden City and thrived. Yesterday I returned for the first time in many years to the shopping centre, it was a melancholy visit…

Letchworth was empty,
like the child’s paddling-pool in winter.
One or two walked the streets
huddled against the cold
to look in shop windows at
stuff they didn’t want
couldn’t afford
or just didn’t interest them.
Empty shops held no attraction
and there seemed to be
plenty of them.
The only shop I found
that attracted the pound in my pocket
was an old-fashioned sweet shop
but that’s not surprising
I have a sweet tooth.
Where were the shops I used
to know and use?
Dead, gone, vanished.
It was as if
the First Garden City
was sitting in a high-backed chair
frail
aged
and quietly weeping as it
wondered where
it all went wrong.

© Baldock Bard 2013
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A Tall Story of a Small Car!

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Fiat 500Do you find that sometimes the weirdest of objects can suddenly invoke a memory that has been laying dormant for years? The other month I saw a small Fiat car in a car park and I took a photo. Looking through some photos last night I suddenly remembered someone I hadn’t thought of since college nearly forty years ago…

Looking at a photo,
A memory stirs within,
Of a fellow student,
Very tall and slim.

I’m sure his name was Bob,
A memory – I can see it!
This vision of a lanky lad,
Getting out of a baby Fiat!

When he’d left the car,
Of ownership – some proof,
A noticeable head-shaped bulge,
In the small sun-roof!

Another thing I remember,
His tall girlfriend’s name was Sue,
And I’m pretty sure that I’m correct,
That little car was blue!

….that’s all folks, memory gone!

© Baldock Bard 2013
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above

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