The invitation to add to the canon prompted by extracts from Paul Dean’s Oldie review of Harvest Bells: New And Uncollected Poems by Sir John Betjeman attracted an entertaining and enterprising set of entries, though not all quite managing the distinctive Betjeman tone There was even, apparently, a posthumous riposte to the reviewer by the great man himself, via Natalie The Mumbling Medium of Neopardy.
The arch, the sentimental and the twee?
Ambiguous this praise from Mr. D.,
Unless perhaps he meant, it could well be,
The Euston arch once championed by me.
Below, in no particular order, are the judge’s choice of candidates to swell the corpus, with the usual thanks to all those who sportingly took part.
John Wood: Postscript
They park their four-by-fours in Rock
To pose for selfies as they stand
Above me at St Enodoc
Beside the church, beneath the sand
To talk of school fees and the price
Of bungalows beside the coast
And how they'd dined at Rick Stein's twice
On avocado, smashed, on toast.
They worry darling Clare and Dave
Have strayed at last beyond their reach
(They're just in from an all night rave
On Greenaway and Polzeath Beach)
Sand in the condoms, wasps in the beer
They've read in The Spectator how
The Princes used to party here.
There's trouble in Trebetherick now.
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William Greig: Strawberries
Summer’s here in shorts and sandals
And bare midriffs causing scandals,
Lawns need cutting every week -
See them growing as I speak.
Empty offices forgotten
As workers dress in cricket cotton
Waiting for their scones at tea
While dreaming what their score might be.
Weekend trips to cooler coast -
Childhood days we cherish most,
Donkey-rides and ice-cream treat,
Feel of pebbles on bare feet.
Tennis racquets glint and swing
As players sweat, ball thwocks on string
At Wimbledon at ten to three.
And are there strawberries still for tea?
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Martin Parker: On The Beach With Jessica
Turning left at the Bay Hotel
And tricycling down to the sea
With my freckled, motherly guardian,
Eight years older than me.
She knew the names of all the shells
And the pools where crabs would be;
Her smile with its grown-up dental brace
Mine for the day, by the sea . . .
Her gently washing the cut on my foot
And wiping the sand from my eye;
And the strangely exciting closeness
As she helped to towel me dry.
Then up the hill and a shy goodbye
And a final glimpse for me
Of Jessica, suntanned goddess,
Bicycling home to tea.
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Mike Mesterton-Gibbons: Hesitater Trials
You have to feel sorry for Emma,
Who longed to keep both of her beaus
But needed to solve her dilemma,
And Guy is the guy that she chose.
Now Henry's a Knight. He made Frances
A Lady, while Guy's MBE
Did little to help Emma's chances
Of climbing society's tree.
The bells in the churchyard are tolling
For Frances, so Emma wears black.
Sir Henry will need some consoling,
And Emma may want Henry back.
Ennoblement's being considered
For Guy. Em's dilemma's still here:
Sail back to the Knight who's been widdered,
Or hope to be hitched to a peer?
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Marshall Begel: Aldershot Maternity Unit
This ward sustains the miracle of birth,
where humankind's redemptive hope appears.
A cry proclaims another life on Earth,
acknowledged by the nurses' smiles and cheers.
Alas, we know this joy is temporary,
For two flights down, you'll find the mortuary.
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Alan Millichip: Bridgnorth
The mighty Severn flows towards the town,
Leaving small pools and eddies at its bank;
With net and rod and basket I go down,
To fish for chub and roach with Tom and Frank.
Beneath a weeping willow we soon camped,
Where logs had jammed and stemmed the currents flow;
With lines set up and weights securely clamped,
Each one in turn could make their farthest throw.
The weather drove us from our river hide,
On Cartway there were wet goodbye's to say;
Too damp to sit around a fire outside,
No stories of the one that got away.
Lying awake is when our thoughts take flight,
Amazed at how the swift and swallow dive
To take the fly before the trout could bite;
A sleepy sense of joy to be alive.
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I. V. Neversere: No Return
(On June 20th 1866 the undergraduate Gerard
Manley Hopkins went by GWR from Ross to
Hereford, where he met a Catholic priest, who
spoke of “the doubtful validity of Anglican
orders” at the then Cathedral Priory Church
of St Michael and All Angels a mile up river.)
Much faster than on foot or hoof –
Mixed gauge – Brunel's great era fading –
Holme Lacy House – glimpse of a roof,
Once hipped, revamped with balustrading.
Eign Bridge – the fourth across the Wye –
Barrs Court. The passengers are home.
Below cloud-flutings up on high
He walks the way that leads towards Rome . . .
Now, as on metals fringed by moss
The last train makes for whence it came
Along the river back to Ross,
One life will never be the same.
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Leo Vincent: Another Death In Leamington Spa
I died in the upstairs bedroom
Having long felt way below par
There in the Cedars Care Home
In moribund Leamington Spa.
And Nurse came in with her cheery smile,
My jolly, carbolicky girl,
With her bosom as full as a spinnaker
That I’d dreamed of seeing unfurl.
And she looked at my pale grey skin tone
And my unresponsive face
And she realised she’d need to tell Matron
There was now a vacant space.
Then she stretched to switch my light out,
Leaning across my bed.
And the spinnaker billowed above me.
“Too late,” I thought, “I’m dead.”
