11 SEPTEMBER 1993, Page 32

El Alamein Anniversary

Fifty years! He's old and out of sorts But still he smiles to see them on the screen, The lads they were, tin hats, enormous shorts As big as bivouacs; full magazine, One up the spout, going in at the high port Through smoke, a newsreel shot in black and white - A fake for civvies, so he'd always thought: It wasn't cameras shooting that first night.

And then live interviews — well, just about Old men, false teeth and medals, pretty toys Dangling from their ribbons, gaunt or stout They wheeze and croak. Fade out. He hears the noise Of bugle's rhetoric; then words: Lest we forget. He snorts; then wonders why his face is wet.

Vernon Scannell