"Chap with Wings"

Martin Holmes has sent us this lovely poem.

CHAP WITH WINGS (FOR MR COURTNEY)

Not that I ever met you
But I hear you were a gent
A fine, upstanding gentle man,
And Honorary President.

A known face on the T.V.
With a life of many parts
Then a troubled space agent
Brought you closer to our hearts

But the one I most remember
Carved in my youthful mind
Was a Colonel then a Brigadier
Who weekly saved mankind.

Just an ordinary soldier
Facing such inhuman foes
Always leading from the front
With that ’tache under your nose.

Daleks, Cybermen, the Yeti,
Autons, Axons and the rest
You bravely stood before them
And gave them quite a test.

An animated statue
Might well prove bullet-proof
It still got “Five rounds rapid”
Before a pint in the “Cloven Hoof”

You flew across the universe
To worlds beyond our reach
But still maintained you’d just been sent
To good old Cromer Beach.

Your oldest friend might change his face
To your cries of “Not again!”
You remained our “Greyhound Leader”
With your trusty swagger cane.

You continued to be loyal
To a “Splendid chap, all of them!”
Who’d turn up before the nick of time
And sort out the problem.

Whenever danger showed its face
You’d face it like a man
With nothing but your modest claim
“I just do the best I can!”

Your blood and thunder days
As Earth’s champion are now past
But we knew as long as you were there
We’d be defended to the last.

No-one who ever met you
Has a bad thing they can say
A man’s finest legacy to leave
As he passes life’s highway.