Slough
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs, and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans
Tinned minds, tinned breath.
Mess up the mess they call a town --
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week for half-a-crown
For twenty years,
And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears,
And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.
But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.
It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead
And talk of sports and makes of cars
In various bogus Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.
In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.
Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.
Commentary
Continuing the theme…
My thanks to Frank O’Shea (the instigator of our current theme – “The Poet Cranky”) for re-introducing this poem to me. (I’d read it in the past, but for some reason it failed to stick in my mind).
Betjeman has been described as the poet of nostalgia, but what I like about today’s poem is not so much the fond remembrance of things past which runs like an undercurrent through almost all his work, as it is the unabashed loathing with which the poet describes the industrial wasteland that Slough has become. I do enjoy an old-fashioned, no-holds-barred rant…
— Thomas
Links
Here’s some more about Slough:
http://www.fact-index.com/s/sl/slough.html
Here’s a biography of John Betjeman:
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/brookej/btjmn/index.htm
Show 4 commentsHide comments
From the Wondering Minstrels mailing list, 1999–2008.
Amanda McGowan · 22 June 2004
Wonderful. I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to live in Slough for seven months of my life. Whilst there, I read an advertisement in the local paper. It was placed by the council and was trying to entice businesses to move to Slough. At the start of the advertisement it had the first line of this poem.
gerald · 24 June 2004
From Gerald McCunn
In my youth, I lived near and worked in Slough. It had - and still has - a huge, multi-racial immigrant population and a vibrant, successful economy offering well-paid employment at all levels. It produces goods and services essential to everybody’s well-being and comfort. Despite his charming, assumed detachment from the prosaic, Betjeman was a wealthy subscriber to the consumer society. Betjeman did not live in Slough or from it.This poem is not even graced with “nimbyism”. It is plain “knocking”.
I acknowledge the talent and have always enjoyed the poetry of Betjeman but it all too frequently describes a world of drones. The beauty of industry is an acquired taste but those, such as Betjeman, who face television cameras, wear clothes, ride in cars, consume pharmaceuticals or ride in wheelchairs, should endeavour to acquire it.
Slough is in fact a fine microcosm of what British society should be.
Vivgood31863 · 21 August 2006
I love Slough - Ricky Gervais
Pearson Family · 25 June 2007
Wasn’t that meant to be a satirical comment on someone (David Brent) who has absolutely no subtlety or appreciation of the arts? If so, it seems strange to call it a ‘masterly’ criticism.
I see that Slough Borough Council has commissioned an answer to the poem, which underlines the horror of the place even more then old Betjeman could.