The ERHS class of ‘sixty-three
Espoused the phrase, “Make it to sixty-nine!”
And while they might have meant it vulgarly,
It also had a meaning less benign.

For some of them went off to fight a war
In which the country had a dubious stake,
To perish on antipodean shores,
For what was a political mistake.

But those who made it through each of fate’s brushes
Need not recall which sixty-nine’s the truth,
Within a dripping woodland flush with thrushes,
While laughing at at vagaries of youth.

There are few men as great and silly as
My very own Paterfamilias.