This populist style poem was inspired by the period after World War 2 when Britain was returning to some sort of normality; the end of rations, the rise of youth culture, the constant ‘emergencies’; Suez, Mau Mau, Malaya, Aden etc. The Empire was winding up and handing the baton of imperialism over to the well-coached US, Britain, the ‘Exhausted Titan’s’ grand plan. My own childhood experience in the former colonies and the fast changing world with British mindsets less eager to match that pace is the general theme.
After the Bloody War
Bovril, Schweppes and ginger ale
Beef dripping on bread that’s stale
Cups of tea from a van in rubble
Served by chipper girls with winks
Thelonious Monk in an astrakhan hat
For those with sophisticated taste
From all the big band jazz worn out
and teens were still not yet a thing
Milk bars drift with oiled youth
In want of heart, and song
A job and something you can’t touch
Whilst older girls line dance hall walls
And wait for ice to break and melt
when bolstered, well-greased young men
from local pubs steal themselves
and make their way to shiny floors
and dance, and clutch the sweaty palms
and young assignations make
And faltering promises take
Like oaths with hope of bells and worth
And children and washing lines and dirt
And blows and dishes and pies and mash
And a life made up of gossip and ‘Well,
Mustn’t grumble, the war is over
And rations ending, so much better’.
Holidays, beers and smokes and jokes
The japes on beaches and a band
Kiss me quick hats and laughter
This happy breed is led to slaughter
Of another kind completely
To lose themselves from parent’s trauma
Another war, another crisis
Cinemas and football prizes
And the loud young singers you had chided
they seem to mock as you collided
The old ways that left their places
The shops, the firms, the common places
All change, all gone familiar faces
And we have grown, go through our phases
We clutched at something we now miss
And soon our life just like the mist
On Summer lawns before the Sun
lingers lightly then is gone