1969 Rolf Harris: Two Little Boys

Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is renowned for many things, but pop punditry is not one of them. Nevertheless, of her few recorded pronouncements in this field, two appear within these pages. The first was 'Telstar', which she considered to be a 'rousing' tune, but she made the ultimate statement any music fan could make to Roy Plomley on 'Desert Island Discs' when she listed 'Two Little Boys' as her all time favourite song. How big a pinch of salt this could be taken with is debateable (and I'll ignore my own prejudices that usually regard Thatcher's approval of anything as the kiss of death), but clearly something within Morse and Madden's 1902 song struck a chord with her.

Originally made popular by Harry Lauder, 'Two Little Boys' is a fable of childhood friendship carried over into adulthood where a past kind act of a boy is reciprocated in later years by the man when the two go to war. After one is injured in battle, the other comes to his aid saying "Did you think I would leave you dying when there's room on my horse for two? Climb up here Joe, we'll soon be flying, I can go just as fast with two" - you can almost see the one time PM's head nodding in approval; mutual self help with no call on the state to lend a hand by paying disability benefits or providing funds for a new horse (and with the money saved probably used to fund tax breaks for horse breeders). Excellent.

Not that 'Two Little Boys' is right wing propaganda per se - it's a morality tale presented in simplistic broad brush strokes that a child would understand. And Rolf sings it in a good natured, unselfconscious 'can't really sing but I'll have a go' voice that any parent would use to sing their children to sleep, and in so doing there's an intimacy in his vocal that keeps the sentimentality down to acceptable levels. Not to the point that I myself would ever listen to this for pleasure you understand, but for the right person at the right time then chances are it can always bring a lump to the throat, especially at Christmas. And maybe such a simple tale of comradeship and togetherness is a fitting way to close the decade we know as 'The Sixties'; after all, as Auden wrote: "We must love one another or die".