A force awakened in this child of 8,

On a birthday visit to the Blackpool Odeon.

It was a force to be reckoned with.

 

I remember the pitch my parents gave,

Resembling much of their later advice and spoilers in the future – growing up:

“Two funny robots in space:

One fat dumpy one

The other tall and scrawny,

Who go on an adventure -

A bit like Laurel and Hardy.”

Not sure if they were describing themselves or droids.

Doesn’t sound good, I thought,

But once we joined the swelling crowds,

Of 70’s tank tops and paisley coloured shirts:

A sense grabbed me of something different to the normal.

 

So I’d been to the pictures before already:

Bambi, Poppins, bedsticks, tarzan of the apes.

But something was there to be felt,

As we huddled in for what seemed like aeons.

If we wait any longer then I could travel the stars,

In the time it took to pass ice cream kiosks, posters, gimmicks and stuff

that catches a child's eyes.

But I felt it. They all felt it. My parents felt it too in their pockets.

So arriving in our seats, parents choking out their kids

with embassy or john player smiles,

passive FX free for all.

The titter and the tatter spoiled down,

As the moth eaten royal curtains unfolded to a dream,

No one could have imagined.

Two funny robots – ummmm!!!

 

The room went dark. Everyone gasped

except for the coughers and the ushers

poking their lights at us sabre like into the rows.

 

The logo, the drumming, and a trumpets call,

Fade to black and here we go

To what seemed a very long time ago...

 

A burst of an orchestra,

Beethoven to the stars,

As the big writing daunted us’ kids in the crawl.

A spaceship,

A fight

And another – f.............................. me!

I may have been wetting my seat.

Then two funny robots

Came into shot

But beeps and posh English splendour,

Far stupefied their original concept.

They were alive – concerned and desperate.

Mum’s face may have dropped a jawbone,

Not a comedy after all,

But ‘a bridge too far in space’

She still despises films about war.

 

And as the film unrolled its celluloid lure

We fell under a spell.

Dark side or light side –

Depending on which part of town you grew up in,

And lasers flashed and sabres statically condoled

A new love for the pictures:

Our new abode – for the next 30 years or more.

Remember – the force will be with us forever!

 

That Christmas was a plastic eternity,

Of figures and dreams.

Death star cardboard eternities,

And bedroom control centre screams.

It didn’t matter if you were poor and you only had the figure of a farm boy,

Or if you were rich and perched with falcon pride,

Or me somewhere in the middle with the speeder and the cast and the curtains, the posters and - you know!

The rose bushes in mum’s backyard and the weeds

Took a blast from our imagination stations

As we unfolded our sagas for what seemed like years.

 

New hopes, returns and stricken dreams,

menacing the playgrounds,

with storm trooper gleam.

And now it is nearly Christmas,

we start all over again...

that same force awakening for

my boy, myself, and many, many more...