THE BOYS FROM THE VINDI.
So where are they now, these boys from the Vindi,
Who fled through the gate as it clanged close behind?
Taking minds full of boat drills and autographed pictures,
Young faces still smiling, leaving childhood behind.
Some didn’t sail too far, just the end of the Channel
When a bearing was taken on a point near St Ives,
Death waits near the Mersey, and the Thames or the Clydeside,
Where Wolf packs lay, programmed, to waste these young lives,
There is nothing but praise we can heap on these seaman
For ours is the debt which cost them their lives.
Not knowing the part that they played in our future.
Not knowing the comfort of children and wives.
Each year as we gather, we boys from the Vindi,
To remember the fallen and to celebrate life,
Now we’re faded old seaman dressed fine in our blazers
With gold speckled badges, sewn on by the wife.
Each year we grow wiser, each year we grow fewer,
For we are a band of diminishing men..
Who formed part of history, a time that just dwindled
To memories and stories and dreams of back then
We strode the world’s stage as a band of young rovers,
We sailed the world’s oceans with a vigorous ease
For we were the future in a legend still forming
Till progress brought shipping and trade to its knees.
So now we commemorate Sharpness and seamen
This tradition is ours and this old ship that died
In a moment of youth we were steeped in her wisdom
For this long haul of age as we ebb like the tide.
So a word before leaving the gates of the Vindi
For we carried her myth as we forged o’er the seas
Where the gods smiled down as we crested the oceans
Where they gave us safe voyage and returned us with ease.
So mark this occasion, you boys from the Vindi,
Just stand for a moment apart from the crowd
To remember their faces, those with us no longer
We all flew the Red Duster and did it unbowed..
Reg Kear© Australia 2006
