Here's a poignant offering to Poet's Corner from a Rhondda gentleman. 

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"The 20th Century"

In 1900 the start of the new century there were many wonders all around

This was the year that began the London Underground.

The next few years cars arrived and man took to the air

Scott got to the South Pole to find that Ammundsen had beaten him there.

The Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, the pride of the White Star Line

Woolworth's opened in New York, known as the Nickel and Dime.

The 1914-18 War to end all wars, the worst that had ever been

Silent films were all the rage, the Keystone Cops, and things we'd never seen.

Next came the Roaring Twenties and American Prohibition

The General Strike, The Charleston and the great Paris Exhibition.

Jolson spoke in the Jazz Singer saying, "You Ain't Heard Nothing Yet"

Micky Mouse and Steamboat Willie, a sure winner you can bet.

The thirties brought depression in the States and over here

The rise of the Nazi Party and Hitler was to become a greater fear.

The Spanish Civil War, persecution of the Jews, and then Peace in our Time

Then the War that had to come on September 3rd Nineteen Thirty Nine.

The forties started with the Battle of Britain, The Blitz and Evacuees

In 1945 the Atom Bomb. What could have been worse than these?

In the fifties the Conquest of Everest, The Coronation and Rock and Roll

Then the Korean War broke out - another that was to take it's toll.

The sixties brought the Beatles, Kennedy's Death, the First Man on the Moon

Flower Power which promoted Peace, but this was to be over soon.

In the Seventies the Vietnam War, and streakers seen at Lords

Spaghetti Junction opened and a tennis triple win for Bjorn Borg.

The eighties brought the Falklands War and many more disasters

Bradford Stadium Fire, the Heysel Crush and then Hillsborough came after.

The Gulf War of the Nineties, then Croatia and Bosnia - when will it ever end?

I pray that the year 2004 will have nothing but peace to send.

by "Mr. Mushnick"

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*Treorchy.net says we hope so too Mr Mushnick - do keep 'em coming!

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