Then, suddenly, a whistle blows,
And all the human dynamos
(with outstretched arms and just-bent knees)
Skid to a halt, fall silent, freeze.
They stand in a trance, their hot breath steaming;
Rub their eyes as though they’ve been dreaming,
Or are caught in the bossy whistle’s spell,
Or simply weary – it’s hard to tell.
A few of them shiver, the air feels cool;
And the thought sinks in: it’s time for school
A little while later, observe the scene,
Transformed by a whistle and Mrs Green:
The empty playground, white and wide;
The scruffy snow, the silent slide.
Inside, with a maths card just begun
And his thoughts elsewhere, sits Denis Dunne.
His hands are chapped, his socks are wet,
But in his head he’s sliding yet.
He sits near a window, he stares through the glass.
The teacher frowns from the front of the class.
Can this boy move! Can this boy skate!
‘Come on, Denis – concentrate.’
Yes, nothing changes, that much is true,
And the chances of sliding in classrooms are few.
So Denis abandons his speculation,
And gets on with his education.
Some plough the land, some mow or mine it;
While others – if you let them – shine it
The Famous Five-a-Side
The early morning sun beams bright
Into our uncle’s cottage kitchen.
Uncle himself researches in his study,
Our parents are conveniently absent.
We breakfast well on eggs and toast
Get changed into our freshly laundered kit
Pick apples in the sunny orchard
Pack boots and buns and lemonade.
The village street is oddly quiet
Anxious faces at the bread-shop window.
There is a rumour of strange goings-on
Burglaries… a missing necklace.
The pitch upon the village green
Still sparkles with its morning dew
Except, that is, for one mysterious patch.
We fasten Timmy’s dog-lead to a bench.
Descending from a battered van
The opposing team are not what we expect.
Older and scowling, oddly kitted out
Their goalie has an eye-patch and a beard.
The ref too has a sinister air
Arriving out of breath and with a limp.
He keeps the ball clutched closely to his chest
And seems unwilling to relax his grip.
‘This lot aren’t Barford Rovers, that’s for sure,’
We whisper as we line up on the pitch.
Julian pretends to tie a bootlace up
And tells the rest of us he’s got a plan.
The game begins. Their strategy is odd.
They crowd around the ball and hardly move.
The referee limps slowly up and down.
The bearded goalie smokes a cigarette
Then suddenly we hear a sound
A hollow croaking voice beneath the grass.
A trap door in the turf begins to rise
And reaching up around it comes… a hand!
George boots the ball now high into the air
It ends up in the smoking goalie’s net.
His team mates oddly chase it in,
The hobbling referee not far behind.
‘This is our chance, chaps!’ Julian cries.
We charge then at the crowded goal,
Unhook the net and drop it on them all:
The spurious players and the bogus ref.
Meanwhile up from his dungeon cell
One plain-clothes CID man stumbles forth.
‘Well done, you fellows – excellent!’ he gasps.
(This was more ‘undercover’ than he’d planned.)
‘This is the Melford Mob,’ he says.
‘Been on their trail all year.
I shouldn’t doubt there’ll be a big reward.’
‘We knew they were suspicious,’ George declares.
Another van appears: the Black Maria.
The losing side are bundled in.
‘You blasted kids!’ the captured goalie growls.
Brave Timmy barks as they are driven off.
That little dog now trots towards the ball,
He sniffs and scrabbles at it with his paws.
‘He wants to tell us something,’ Anne explains.
Back home to Uncle’s cottage, time for lunch.
There’s sausages and chocolate cake and squash.
‘Good game?’ says Uncle, peering round the door.
‘Oh absolutely yes!’ cries George. ‘We won!’
Dog in the playground
Dog in the playground
Suddenly there.
Smile on his face,
Tail in the air.
Dog in the playground
Bit of a fuss:
I know that dog –
Lives next to us!
Dog in the playground:
Oh, no he don’t.
He’ll come with me,
You see if he won’t.
The word gets round;
The crowd gets bigger.
His name’s Bob.
It ain’t – it’s Trigger
They call him Archie!
They call him Frank!
Lives by the Fish Shop!
Lives up the Bank!
Who told you that?
Pipe down! Shut up!
I know that dog
Since he was a pup.
Dog in the playground:
We’ll catch him, Miss.
Leave it to us.
Just watch this!
Dog in the playground
What a to-do!
Thirty-five children,
Caretaker too,
Chasing the dog,
Chasing each other.
I know that dog –
He’s our dog’s brother!
We’ve cornered him now;
He can’t get away.
Told you we’d catch him,
Robert and – Hey!
Don’t open that door –
Oh, Glenis, you fool!
Look, Miss, what’s happened:
Dog in the school.
Dog in the classroom,
Dog in the hall,
Dog in the toilets –
He’s paying a call!
Forty-six children,
Caretaker too,
Headmaster, three teachers,
Hullabaloo!
Lost him! Can’t find him!
He’s vanished! And then:
Look, Miss, he’s back
In the playground again
Shouting and shoving –
I’ll give you what for! –
Sixty-five children
Head for the door.
Dog in the playground,
Smile on his face,
Tail in the air,
Winning the race.
Dog in his element
Off at a jog,
Out of the gates:
Wish I was a dog.
Dog in the playground:
Couldn’t he run?
Dog in the playground
…Gone!
The Match (c. 1950)
The match was played in Albert Park
From half-past four till after dark
By two opposing tribes of boys
Who specialized in mud and noise;
Scratches got from climbing trees
Runny noses, scabby knees
Hair shaved halfway up the head
And names like Horace, Archie, Ted.
The match was played come
rain or shine
By boys who you could not confine
Whose common goals all unconcealed
Were played out on the football field.
Off from school in all directions
Sparks of boys with bright complexions
Rushing home with one idea
To grab their boots… and disappear
But Mother in the doorway leaning
Brings to this scene a different meaning
The jobs and duties of a son
Yes, there are errands to be run.
Take this wool to Mrs Draper
Stop at Pollock’s for a paper
Mind this baby, beat this rug
Give your poor old mum a hug.
Eat this apple, eat this cake
Eat these dumplings, carrots, steak!
Bread ’n’ drippin’, bread ’n’ jam
Mind the traffic, so long, scram.
Picture this, you’re gazing down
Upon that smoky factory town.
Weaves of streets spread out, converge
And from the houses boys emerge.
Specks of boys, a broad selection
Heading off in one direction
Pulled by some magnetic itch
Up to the park, on to the pitch.
Boys in boots and boys in wellies
Skinny boys and boys with bellies
Tiny boys with untied laces
Brainy boys with violin cases.
The match was played to certain rules
By boys from certain streets and schools
Who since their babyhood had known
Which patch of earth to call their own.
The pitch, meanwhile, you’d have to say
Was nothing, just a place to play.
No nets, no posts, no lines, alas
The only thing it had was grass.
Each team would somehow pick itself
No boys were left upon the shelf
No substitutions, sulks or shame
if you showed up, you got a game.
Not 2⋅3⋅5 or 4⋅2⋅4
But 2⋅8⋅12 or even more.
Six centre forwards, five right wings
Was just the normal run of things.
Lined up then in such formations
Careless of life’s complications
Deaf to birdsong, blind to flowers
Prepared to chase a ball for hours,
A swarm of boys who heart and soul
Must make a bee-line for the goal.
A kind of ordered anarchy
(There was, of course, no referee).
They ran and shouted, ran and shot
(At passing they were not so hot)
Pulled a sock up, rolled a sleeve
And scored more goals than you’d believe.
Slid and tackled, leapt and fell
Dodged and dribbled, dived as well
Headed, shouldered, elbowed, kneed
And, half-time in the bushes, peed.
With muddy shorts and muddy faces
Bloody knees and busted laces
Ruddy cheeks and plastered hair
And voices buffeting the air.
Voices flung above the trees
Heard half a mile away with ease,
For every throw in, every kick
Required an inquest double quick.
A shouting match, all fuss and fury
(Prosecutors, judges, jury)
A match of mouths set to repeat
The main and muddier match of feet.
Thus hot and bothered, loud and nifty
That’s how we played in 1950
A maze of moves, a fugue of noise
From forty little boiling boys.
Yet there was talent, don’t forget
Grace and courage too, you bet
Boys like Briggs or Tommy Gray
Who were, quite simply, born to play.
You could have stuck them on the moon
They would have started scoring soon
No swanky kit, uncoached, unheeded
A pumped-up ball was all they needed.
Around the fringes of the match
Spectators to this hectic patch
Younger sisters, older brothers
Tied-up dogs and irate mothers.
A mother come to claim her twins
(Required to play those violins).
A little sister, Annabelle,
Bribed with a lolly not to tell.
Dogs named Rover, Rex or Roy
Each watching one particular boy.
A pup mad keen to chase the ball
The older dogs had seen it all
The match was played till after dark
(Till gates were closed on Albert Park)
By shadowy boys whose shapes dissolved
Into the earth as it revolved
Ghostly boys who flitted by
Like bats across the evening sky,
A final fling, a final call
Pursuing the invisible ball.
The match was played, the match is over
For Horace, Annabelle and Rover.
A multitude of feet retrace
The steps that brought them to this place.
For gangs of neighbours, brothers, friends
A slow walk home is how it ends,
Into a kitchen’s steamy muddle
To get a shouting at… or cuddle.
See it now, you’re looking down
Upon that lamp-lit factory town.
It’s late (it’s night) for Rex or Ted
And everybody’s gone to bed.
Under the rooftops slicked with rain
The match is being played again
By two opposing well-scrubbed teams
Who race and holler in their dreams.
AFTER WORDS
if you write children’s books, one bonus is you get children’s letters, generous letters that conclude, often as not, with love and kisses. Letters, in my case, that praise me for my ‘poems’, promote me to a poet. Well, there could be a poem in here, somewhere, but I suspect it’s mostly light verse. Yet there it is on the cover, ‘Collected Poems’. For children, if it rhymes or sits on the page in short lines, it’s a poem. Verse rarely gets a mention… which I thought I’d mention.
The poems/verses here have been sifted from five books written over a period of twenty-five years. I have not included picture-book texts, Each Peach Pear Plum, for instance, or Cops and Robbers. Somehow they were just too wrapped up in and around Janet’s pictures. Excluded also are a number of more recent efforts, although this one nearly got in:
Uncle Edith
This poem, I regret to say,
Is quite untrue.
Uncle was really Auntie, of course,
And Edith, actually, Hugh.
I wish to thank the Superintendent of Parks and Cemeteries for Oldbury in the 1960s, Mr McGibbon. I was employed then, in one of his cemeteries, as a gravedigger. Eventually, Mr McGibbon persuaded me up and out of my hole in the ground and propelled me off to become, in the fullness of time, a teacher. Mr McGibbon was my Good Samaritan. I owe him.
Yes, and Harry and Dennis too, my fellow gravediggers, who taught me that all work has its skills. The graves they dug were ten feet deep, neat and perpendicular and coffin-shaped. They did not move one spadeful of earth more than was needed (mitred corners, tapered ends). My graves, ragged-edged and sloping, were not a patch on theirs. The digging I do now is with a pen. It is a trade – prose, poetry or verse – I’m better suited for. No dog with a bone, but a treasure-hunter, maybe. Love and kisses.
A. A. Bath, 2008
INDEX OF FIRST LINES
About a mile North of Preston, 149
Approach with ball, 163
Bags I the dummy, 84
Billy McBone, 120
Boys will be boys, 115
Dear Mrs Butler, this is just a note, 89
Derek Drew, 21
Do a project on dinos
aurs, 16
Dog in the playground, 243
Dream football is the harder game, 135
Emma Hackett? 14
Here is the rule for what to do, 212
I – am – in – the – slow, 192
I came from Battersea, 262
I did a bad thing once, 86
I remember him clearly, 103
I see a seagull in the playground, 8
I’d like to tell you what they are, 124
I’m getting up for school, 91
I’m playing in this big game, 160
I’m standing on the touchline, 178
I’ve got the, 27
I’ve writ on the wrong page, Miss, 5
In an ordinary house in an ordinary room, 169
In friendly matches, 181
In London Town some years ago, 33
In the cloakroom, 25
In the fabulous year of ’66, 173
In the last week of the holidays, 211
Lads, believe me, 158
Let the children in our care, 191
Marcus, don’t argue with the ref, 152
Marcus, what did I say? 155
May we have our ball, please, 81
My friend, 116
No charming chatty Prince for him, 95
Nobody leave the room, 203
Not I said the owl, 177
Not now, Nigel, 19