Forty Years On

“Forty years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today...”

I won’t continue – but you remember it don’t
you? It was Harrow’s School Song sung with a
chorus line change; “thirty true men” made much
more sense back then. And we were the babes in
the livery of men.

Forty years on is hardly forever; OCS made us older –
yes, whether wiser is best left to hearsay or dream
therapy. It was the pause in between. So where were
you July 4, 1968? Flinders Street Station? I vaguely
recall Whiskey A Go Go, sleeping on the stairs.

I’ve already had my say, know well a richness of
memories that still remain – some facts may drift on
errant wings but voices of the past will soon correct all
those things for me it seems went discretely missing in
action. Forty years passes in a wink and a nod.

“Till the field ring again and again,
With the tramp of the thirty true men...”

See you then...
© 9 July 2008, I. D. Carswell

For the OCS Class of ’69
Forty Year Reunion
13 June 2009