"So I mustn't forget / No I mustn't forget / To stop the spread of Communism / I mustn't forget..."

If you grew up in the UK at about the same time as me, it's an odds-on chance that you'll recognise the following lines.

Autumn days when the grass is jewelled,
And the silk inside a chestnut shell,
Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled,
All the things I love so well.

So I mustn't forget
No I mustn't forget
To say a great big thank you
I mustn't forget.

This, of course, is the first verse and chorus of the classic "Autumn Days" by Estelle White, taken from the songbook "Come and Praise" as seen in primary school assemblies all over the country. I can't remember offhand which volume of C&P it's from - it's either the blue one with the creepy solarised children on the front, or the green and yellow one - but the fact that it's so non-religion-specific as to make it entirely useless for worship under any organised religion suggests it's probably from the latter. I always used to enjoy singing this one when I was small - it had its own very entertaining little moments, such as everyone roaring "AND A WIN FOR MY HOME TEAM" at one point, and some of the imagery is beautiful.

However, it's only when I look back on it now that it starts to look a bit weird. Read that first verse again, taking particular note of the last two lines: "Jet planes meeting in the air to be refuelled / All the things I love so well." When was the last time you ever saw a plane undergoing in-flight refuelling? I know for a fact that I've never seen it, and I very much doubt that this is different for most other people.

The reason for this is that, unsurprisingly, in-flight refuelling is very difficult to do successfully. There are several systems for doing so, which have been developed over the years - back when transatlantic aeroplane crossings were a rarity, large flying-boats were refuelled in flight to give them the ability to make the journey in one go, for example. Since the advent of airliners capable of making long-haul flights, though, the technique has more or less been restricted to those aircraft that need to be make critical very long-haul flights, and are carrying things that are too dangerous to risk landing often.

If you haven't noticed where I'm going with this - the only aircraft that fit this description are military. According to Wikipedia's terrifyingly detailed article on the subject, almost every air operation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq was refuelled in flight, and it was apparently not unusual for bombers in the first Gulf War to carry out operations lasting well over a day, staying in flight for the whole thing.

With this in mind, "Autumn Days" starts to take on a rather sinister meaning. Remember, it was written (and sung) in the Cold War, a time when we could have been tipped at any moment into an all-out nuclear holocaust. Teaching children to include in their list of the "things they love so well" the sight of military jets constantly overhead has more than a slight air of Big Brother about it - it provides a mental image of children looking up to the skies, not to thank God (or even a non-specific deity) for all the things they've received, but to be comforted at the sight of their nation's air force circling silently above them, waiting to defend from the faceless enemies overseas should they ever make their final, deadly strike.

Not having really been old enough to appreciate what the Cold War was while it was going on (I vaguely remember the USSR breaking up, but it meant nothing to me other than a new name on the map), the song clearly didn't manage to have this effect on me. I do wonder, though, whether it was an entirely accidental choice of imagery on Ms. White's part - or whether there were kids, perhaps not much older than me, for whom "Come and Praise" was filed into the same mental space as "Protect and Survive".