Too young for the first
Too old for the second
Quite the fine timing
When all is reckoned
He could have been one of the 20 percent
Destroyed at the Somme
Their flags and their bodies
Horribly rent
Or shredded with schrapnel
On Omaha beach
French liberation for them
Just beyond reach
Instead he was a docker
And fathered eight kids
Imagine the population difference
In this fair land
If Arch Duke Frankie
Had not got whacked
By the Gavrillo and the Black Hand
But the war machine rolled
And the tales all got told.
My lucky grandad
With his dockers hook
Stands and stares at the future
From the Liverpool Dock.