Lyrics:

In my youth, I played at trains
Now all steam is gone
In my dreams, brief shelter from the rain
I try to catch the fireglow

With Dinky Toys, I thought that I was Stirling
With cricket bat, I saw myself as Peter May
Now, with all these images returning
I wonder who I am today?

As a child, I refought the war
With plastic planes and imagination
I sank Tirpitz, blew up the Mohne dam, all these and more
I was the saviour of the Nation

Oh! To be the captain of a ship of war
The pilot of a Tempest or a York
To hold my trench against the Panzer Korps
Instead of simply being one who talks
And reminisces of his fantasies
As though life was nothing but to lose
These only antecede the knowledge that, eventually, he must choose

It's a hallmark of adulthood
That our options diminish
As our faculties for choice increase
Till we choose everything and nothing
Too late, at the finish

In my youth, I held belief
My faith and thought were strong
But now I'm stripped of every leaf
And it robs me of the sight of right and wrong

Oh! To be the son of Che Guevara
One unit in the serried ranks of black
A Papist or an Orangeman, a eunuch
Then doubt would never cast the dagger in my back

Oh! To be King John or Douglas Bader
Humphrey Bogart or Victor Mature
Which one is false and easy, which one harder?
Of that, of this, of me I'm really not too sure