Vale your Majesty

 As I write this, I’m listening (well, bingeing really) to the ABC’s coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth.

Many people are saying that most Australians have lived with no other Monarch, but I’m so old I was already eight when she made her first visit to Australia in 1954 not long after her accession. Along with what was estimated as at least half of the entire population of Sydney, my mother, my brother and I went somewhere now forgotten where we could join people lining the streets to wave little Union Jacks as her cortège drove by. 

I can’t say I remember that, but I do have a shred of memory that the day (on 3 February) was extremely hot and my mother (in the era before bottled water) knocked on a local door to ask for water for her children.

The year before, her Coronation had been marked, inter alia, by the publication of glossy picture books about the event. I remember having one of these and loving it.

Many, many years later I was honoured to be invited to a garden party with the Queen at NSW Government House. I can’t say she shook my hand, but it was quite special just to be there.

So … vale Your Majesty; as we say in the Jewish tradition, may your memory be a blessing.

And now to something a lot lighter.

My friend Manou got these word memories from a friend of hers. Some of this material is American-speak but enough is familiar.

He calls them “lost words from those of us lucky enough to have lived in the 1950s”.
“Mergatroyd! Do you remember that word? Would you believe the spell-checker did not recognize the word Mergatroyd? Heavens to Mergatroyd!The other day a not so elderly, (I say 75), lady said something to her son about driving a jalopy; and he looked at her, quizzically and said, "What the heck is a jalopy?" He had never heard of the word jalopy! She knew she was old!

Well, I hope you are Hunky Dory after you read this and chuckle.
About a month ago, I illuminated some old expressions that have become obsolete because of the inexorable march of technology. These phrases included “don't touch that dial, carbon copy, you sound like a broken record, hung out to dry”.

Back in the olden days, we had a lot of moxie.  We'd put on our best bib and tucker, to straighten up and fly right.

Heavens to Betsy! Gee whillikers! Jumping Jehoshaphat, Holy moley!
We were in like Flynn and living the life of Riley and even a regular guy couldn't accuse us of being a knucklehead, a nincompoop or a pill. Not for all the tea in China!

Back in the olden days, life used to be swell, but when's the last time anything was swell? Swell has gone the way of beehives, pageboys and the Duck's Tail; or spats, knickers, fedoras, poodle skirts, saddle shoes, and pedal pushers.

Oh, my aching back! Kilroy was here, but he isn't anymore.
We wake up from what surely has been just a short nap, and before we can say, "Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle!" or "this is a fine kettle of fish!" we discover that the words we grew up with, the words that seemed as omnipresent as oxygen, have vanished with scarcely a notice from our tongues and our pens and our keyboards.

Poof, go the words of our youth, the words we've left behind. We blinked, and they're gone. Where have all those great phrases gone? Long gone: Pshaw, The milkman did it. Hey! It's your nickel. Don't forget to pull the chain. Knee high to a grasshopper. Well, Fiddlesticks! Going like sixty. I'll see you in the funny papers. Don't take any wooden nickels. Wake up and smell the roses.

Leaves us to wonder where Superman will find a phone booth ... See ya later, alligator! or after a while crocodile!
OkeyDokey. You'll notice they left out "Monkey Business" …

We are the children of the Fabulous 50s. We were given one of our most precious gifts, to live in the peaceful and comfortable times created for us by the greatest generation.”