The little Toy Shop in the High Street,
With its pebble glass windows and doors,
Was a magical place, with its curtains of lace
And delight on its shelves and its floors.
It had always enticed and enthralled me,
With its skaters that whirled on a rink,
With tops that would hum, and soldiers with drum,
And dolls with bright eyes that would blink.

It had stood near the kerb in the High Street
In a small seaside village in Wales,
And we would go there for a part of the year
Near the Inn that was selling Welsh ales.
And I would stare in through the window
Though the glass would distort what I’d see,
When the women would pass, all the chattering class
I would think they were talking to me.

It would sound like they sang to each other,
Not a word in my English was said,
And their voices would meld with that Toy Shop,
Till I thought, ‘What goes on in their head?’
But I left that Welsh village behind me
As I grew, with much laughter and tears,
It was later, a trip would remind me,
What I’d left in the past, all those years.

Then I found myself standing outside it,
That little Toy Shop from the past,
Where nothing had changed, just the stock rearranged
When I stared through that window at last.
I opened the door with the pebble glass
And I made my way slowly within,
And there stood a girl in a bonnet and blouse
And a pinny tucked all the way in.

Her hair was the colour of seaside sand
And her eyes were the blue of the sea,
I noticed that there was no ring on her hand
And that she stared intently at me.
I think we both knew in an instant then
That within a short year we’d be wed,
But though she still sings in her Welsh with a friend
I don’t know what goes on in her head.

David Lewis Paget