I read this at Dad's funeral: WWII naval service, English teacher and fan of Kipling.

Far-called our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre.
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget.

Thanks to Dad, I can recite huge chunks of Macauley's Lays of Ancient Rome, and gained valuable cred with my A' level Latin teacher for supplyig a line which alluded her!

I think I first came across this poem in a 1970s Look and Learn or Tell me Why comic, and the rhythm just spoke to me, although I didn't know why at the time.

Another poem from my 1977 English O'level syllabus which I still remember...

I learned this for O'level in 1977 and still remember it.

This is the night mail crossing the Border,
Bringing the cheque and the postal order,
Letters for the rich, letters for the poor,
The shop at the corner, the girl next door.

Less said the better.
The bill unpaid, the dead letter.
No roses at the end
Of Smith, my friend.

And through some mooned Valhalla there will pass
Battalions and battalions, scarred from hell;
The unreturning army that was youth;
The legions who have suffered and are dust.

A grand little lad was young Albert,
All dressed in his best, quite a swell,
With a stick with a horse’s head handle,
The finest that Woolworth’s could sell.

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the gate:
‘"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his Gods?"

All along the backwater, through the rushes tall,
Ducks are a-dabbling, up tails all

I've no problem with having an infinite number of crafting projects on the go at once, but it's one (fiction) book at the time, and I can't explain why, unless it's because I'm a stupidly fast reader?

Yes! Among other things, I unblocked my direct (and thoroughly untruthful) Jones line because gg-gran's niece was the informant on the death certificate of one of gg-gran's children.

I use old nappy pins as small stitch holders for my knitting - they're practical when it's just a few stitches!

Oh yes - my grandmother is recorded as Mary Ellen instead of Sarah Ellen on one census - it's definitely the right family/address (I have all the birth certs), and all the other names are correct, including her oldest sister Mary Ann. Enumerator's copying error, I guess. 🙄

My master tree has always been offline, backed up to 2 external hard drives as well as to cloud. Hard copies plus scans of all BMD documents, photos, wills etc, also backed up. You can't have too many #backups! I also use longhand sources for info, rather than links.

Oh blimey - forever associated (in a good way) with juke boxes in pubs along the West Highland Way in summer 1982. Bacccardi and Coke, and using the pub loo for a wash and brush up when the campsite was rubbish... 🙄

My A' Level year - wish I could watch again! (No longer in UK.)