Were Uncle Charlie’s plums as good
As memory would now insist?
Were they as big as cricket balls,
Black-fleshed ambrosia that no-one could resist.
That hideout down behind the hedge
Where with our booty we’d have flown.
Boasting of our capacity
As witnessed by the heap accreting stone by stone.
And juice! Could there have been so much
Of that perverse insidious dye
To always stain us down the front
Accusingly, to give our innocence the lie?
The tummy aches were real enough
And all that retching at the sink.
The powdered chalk and castor oil
More punishment than physic, distance makes me think.
But it was worth it! Wasn’t it?