There was the dawn we never saw and the dusk we were born into:
there was the egg marketing board a little lion a glass of Mackeson
Trebor mints the icons of the age the dull sliding of the QEII down
the slipway the sudden sliding of coal over children the same age as us
in their classroom and then over me.
There was the strip of whalebone a throbbing palm a compass
in the back the raw pagan knuckles on the head the chinese
burn the dead leg the cross country run the snowball down
the shirt all barely visible under inches of dust in which
we wrote our initials and various insults.
There was a dirty river with wreaths of fishing line swirling past a sign
Thames Conservancy Board no fishing no swimming orus slipping down the
weir coated in green slime or fumbling with a bra strap on the bank
while the water police shone their light on us: you can’t do that there they said
like every other jobsworth.
There was the bus stop the rubber johnny frozen in a puddle and along came
the bus it was the 131 the conductors were all characters and on it we sat in
our blazers the sacred heart upon the breast gingerly on a yellow cross there
were the hordes of Holy Cross girls green and shrieking
and sometimes divinely
there was brown skin dark eyes short black skirt long black socks.
Tarted up wog slag said a blazer / slag was the stuff that slid down on those
children we are older than them now and we always will be
I said as the bus inched along the bus took forever because the dirty
river had burst its banks.
There was a parting of ways a parting of waters rushing waters
everywhere the famous flood of ’68 the paper thin Dunkirk spirit the army
handing out vast platefuls of school dinners from field kitchens the tv crews
we jumped up and down in front of them and then watched the news
we were on it we existed.
There was the coal hole out there in the dark but by and by
the gas heater was like a miracle to fall asleep in front of it was like Christmas
day every night with the telly snowing across our silent field, the Captain
Bird’s Eye Findus haddock cod in batter faggots Mr Kipling landscape and
shining on the boxes and the tinfoil piled in drifts.
There was the plate on the knee radio to ear softly softly there was
the news an hysterical eighteen year old Czech screaming at a stony faced
eighteen year old Russian in a tank Arthur Scargill’s sideburns or a cat up a
tree there was study and its thin rewards.
The bus was the only private place.
There was a lifetime of school dinners curry once a week the colour
of jaundiced skin and the strawberry jam as a stigmata on the rice pudding:
there was the guitar at the back of the chapel / he was the lord of the dance
said he while at the front of the chapel his heart still burned / we put our left
legs in and out, and shook them all about.
There was the dull sliding of Anne and Mark down the slipway
we huddled in the dark outside the chip shop all the streetlights were out
our underage drinking was done by candlelight we had no power
the three day week was more than long enough and nowadays
in the warmly flickering candlelight.
at dinner the conversation turns in a faltering moment from television
to schooldays, and I find I am saying more about it and more bitterly
and at greater length than the conversation requires
still the same age as those other children
and still under the mountain.
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