The Old Fire Station, Bethnal Green. PART ONE

The Old Fire Station, Bethnal Green

(Vieux-Boucau, Côte d’Argent, France, August 2002)

I

Just now the clock is turning fast,
But turning back, toward the past;
And if I could somehow unlearn,
All that I know, I might return
To childhood – and so recall
Those carefree days when I was small.

I dream of Sundays ‘down the Lane’,
Of tawdry stalls and pouring rain;
Wet shell-fish measured in pint jugs;
Hot sarsaparilla in chipped mugs;
Cold winter mornings, of half-light,
And fresh, hot beigels, baked all night.

I picture blokes in scarves and caps,
And if I try, I could perhaps
Have tastes and smells restored to me,
From my old Grandma’s scullery.
There peas were shelled, potatoes scrubbed,
And Gold Virginia, ready-rubbed.
French-polish stains – O, Zut Alors!
Here I sit, sun-stroked, red and raw,
Praying for gentle rain to cool
Bad-tempered Frenchmen playing boules.

The girls though: Elles sont magnifiques!
So tall and slim and tanned and chic.
But beauty crafted, is façade,
For truth to tell, they try too hard.
Les Madamoiselles sophistiquées
Dress stylishly, but rarely stray.

This brings to mind the Roman Road;
A far more unrefined dress-code,
Of white stilettos, dyed blonde hair,
Gold anklets, tattoos, midriff bare;
Girls tottering, from stall to stall,
In heels too high and skirts too small.
Just watch them flirt, it’s hardly coy –
Loitering, as some trader’s boy
Comes pushing clothing hung on racks,
While calling out, “Girls, mind your backs.”
They’ll wink at him and give a leer
And let him bump them in the rear.
You certainly won’t hear them say,
“Vous n’avez pas la priorité.”

II

Concordia discors … can be seen
In Spitalfields and Bethnal Green.
All kinds of people mingle there:
The dispossessed, the strange, the rare.
But still the workers’ livelihoods
Are cut from clothes and leather-goods.
Mean houses built in terraced rows,
Once workrooms for the Huguenots,
Then rag trade of impoverished Jews,
Are full of leather coats and shoes.
Where once the proud but raggèd folk
Their mongrel Cockney Yiddish spoke,
Became the place to see and hear,
The words of Bengal or Kashmir.
Now ghosts of East End hand-me-down
Are dyed with spice in Banglatown,
And Kaddish, that was said for kin,
Is drowned by cries of Muezzin.
As Lionel Bart said, wistfully,
Now fings ain’t what they used t’be.

Samuel Johnson – that old curmudgeon,
Oft in his cups, or in high dudgeon,
Praised London, and did once declaim,
That living there was worthy aim;
That if a man, despite the strife,
Grew tired of it, he’s tired of life.
For London is a great endeavour,
A patchwork quilt, close-stitched together.
Off London streets, lie sudden squares
Of marbled homes with haughty airs,
Though further east, a few miles hence,
Rise grim, graffiti’d tenements.
If West End is all pomp and grace
The East End shows her time-scarred face.
Just like a sea, she ebbs and flows,
And every sin and virtue knows.

Not massacre by Boudicca,
Nor bombing raids of Luftwaffe,
Could stubborn, beating heart subdue;
For London builds herself anew.
Came plague; came fire; came each disaster,
No terror ever proved her master;
Bright beacon for two thousand years,
Despite the beam is streaked with tears.
Yet all the teeming multitudes
Know London has more mellow moods.
Her parks and gardens act as lungs,
Giving breath to three hundred tongues,
And noble bridges, strung with light
Remain the poet’s fairest sight.

III

Red buses and black taxi cabs
Crawl past the crowded pavement slabs,
Where gaudy theatres, bright-lit shops
Cast rainbows through the cold raindrops,
Spattering, the people bound
For shelter, in the underground.
But then! Black gates and colonnades
Behind which hide old, quaint arcades;
The covered markets, still abiding,
Though now a tourist trap providing;
And stately stations, glass en-domed,
But comfortless to those un-homed.
Yet London draws the woebegone,
The wretched, would-be Whittington,
For whom the streets are hard and cold,
And never have been paved with gold.

A legend of the ancients tells
Of two forbidding sentinels;
As wardens grim, their mission set,
To answer peril, risk or threat.
Perhaps mere fable – who can say?
Though I believe that to this day,
Corineus and Gogmagog
Maintain their watchful duologue.
Still ravens occupy The Tower,
That monument to timeless power;
And so the seat of mighty name
Shall ever have the right to claim,
The loyalty of those who dwell
Within the hearing of Bow Bell.

IV

I will! I’ll board an aeroplane,
Or take a boat or ride a train,
And home to London, will I head,
To be where I was born and bred.
I shall not tell of golden seas,
Nor bosky woods or spreading trees,
For London boasts no sylvan gems,
Just one flawed jewel, Father Thames,
Who stirs and chews the muddy clay,
His enigmatic, watery way.
But does he mourn those days of trade
When deals were done and money made?
Or is he now content to know
A placid, post-industrial flow?

Perhaps I’ll take the river cure
And walk through places, rich and poor,
(Betrayed by how the people speak)
From Cheyne Walk to old Bow Creek.
But though I’ll cherish ev’ry scene,
My heart belongs to Bethnal Green.